Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

"Phil the Enforcer", as I described him, and that is what he was. He left ruin after him. The Government, with the Labour Party a part of it, supported him.

Deputy Howlin was a Minister at the time. I described him as being like the high priest because he would not listen to anyone. Deputy Howlin had a close family member who was a senior member of the Association of Municipal Authorities of Ireland, AMAI, and consequently, Deputy Howlin above all should have been best advised as to the fatalities of this measure. However, this was not the case and I do not know what medicine he was trying to dispense to people. In Tipperary, Clonmel was a proud borough council and the Labour Party was founded there. As a result, the Labour Party could not go back there to celebrate when the party's centenary came around, which was a pity. I decried those who objected to the Labour Party. It should have been welcomed back anyway to Clonmel, but to protests and everything else. There is Carrick-on-Suir, as I said, Clonmel, Thurles, Templemore and, indeed, Nenagh, Cashel and Tipperary town. Cashel of the kings has been renowned for centuries. Now the council building, that was only opened a few years beforehand, is locked up to the people. There is not a place to host a civic reception for all kind of dignitaries who come from far and near.

We retained the town hall in Clonmel with great difficulty because Mr. MacGrath, the chief executive officer, CEO, of the council - they are not called county managers any more - wanted to close that as well. He gave us a lucky-bag chain of office, while we have a noble chain, worth €50,000, that is locked away in a vault. It is an insult to the town of Clonmel. That is what we have and a lucky-bag would be better. We are in and out to - I was going to say "fishmongers" and I might as well - jewellery shops to get it fixed every time it is worn. Those chains of office were a disgrace and those for all the counties were all the same. They diminished and rubbished the people and the dignity of those offices.

Almost three years ago to the month, I highlighted the necessity of a constitutional challenge to the Local Government Reform Act 2014 as well as the urgent need for a judicial review of the legality of the Act, which led to the eradication of more than 80 town and borough councils throughout the country. It was high-handed in the extreme. We can all talk, as Sinn Féin is talking there now as well. On the last day of that Bill's passage here, I was the only Deputy standing - there were other parties representing - to challenge the then Minister, Mr. Phil Hogan, to tell him how fatal it was and that we would be meeting in another forum. The following day, thanks to Former Local Authority Members Éire, FLAME, and former Councillor Niall Dennehy, a former mayor of Clonmel, I served Mr. Hogan with a summons in the Dáil canteen - probably the first ever. Of course, Mr. Hogan was laughing because he knew where he was heading. He did not care about the ordinary people. We are only minions. It was to hell with the people and "Croppies lie down", as Cromwell was back in a different guise.

At the time, the statement provided by Government sources suggested that the merger of Cork County Council was also a solo run by the then Minister, Deputy Kelly. Where is he today? He is not even happy with his Labour Party colleagues. He wants them all gone. He would run the party himself. I told the Labour Party at the time it would come back in a car but they came back in a seven-seater. If they get Deputy Kelly in charge, God knows, I do not where they will end up.

At the end of 2015, the then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, properly described the abolition of 80 town councils as his single greatest policy regret in four years of Government. I acknowledge that and fair dues to Deputy Howlin for that. It was the worst thing that ever happened. Those comments were then backed at the Labour Party conference by Deputy Kelly. The Deputy was backing Deputy Howlin at that time - now he is snapping at his heels. They wept tears for local government but did nothing to try and reverse that disastrous decision. When they were in government, they could have seen the folly of their way sooner and tried to change it.

In the intervening years, however, we have had no meaningful political debate about the implications of those admissions by the two then senior Ministers, Deputy Howlin agus An Teachta Kelly. This has, in turn, exposed a chasm of political indifference at the heart of Government concerning the threat to democratic structures in the State. It was absurd for this matter to continually go on without debate and for it to be relegated to the margins of political conversation. I stood here on countless occasions in that four-year period on the Order of Business questioning when the Government would return them but they were all happy to forget about it.

I fully supported the work of FLAME, which, at the time of the so-called Local Government Reform Act, challenged the constitutionality of the decision to axe the councils. It was unconstitutional, as far as I am concerned. FLAME advanced the view that the Act was repugnant to the Constitution, specifically, that it violates Article 28A of the Constitution, and the European Charter of Local Self-Government.

At a committee earlier, I was talking to the EU representatives celebrating 45 years membership. I note that our Commissioner is due to retire soon. I told them to bring him to another country and not to send him back here, even to stand for any town council because he would not get elected to it. As I stated, the 80 town and borough councils had 744 members. These were decent people working for a pittance. They were the servants of the people on the ground. They were members of the joint policing committees, JPCs. They were able to help An Garda Síochána solve crime. They were able to help with the Tidy Towns competitions. They were able to help with planning matters and many other issues. Most of them did not do it for money. They were committed to better their own places.

As I said, the Fianna Fáil election manifesto, and indeed, the programme for Government, want to restore those with populations over 7,500. Why is that not being acted on? We are fooling around.

The Labour Party has suffered seriously over this. There were funds then as well. I have asked questions about that. There were funds in the relative organisations of the members such as the AMAI and others. Where did that money go? I am not saying anybody took it but it was amalgamated and sucked in somewhere.

We talk about savings. There were no savings. We talked about €5 million in Tipperary with the putting together and although the British could not rule Tipperary when it was such a long county, Big Phil, the enforcer, thought he could push us all in together and we would get €5 million. We got zilch savings and we got anti-democratic decisions. The decisions are being stripped away as late as last week by reserved functions being taken off the members in Clonmel borough districts.

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