Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The figure 5,000 is even better and is good news. Those town councils were a strong voice. Time and again today, we have heard how that voice was important in things such as Tidy Towns and promoting employment and what was good in those towns. When one looks back at what happened, there was a little snobbery involved because the guys and girls in the town councils were seen as bits of idiots that one could not really have representing their town or area. That was very wrong, but it existed. I hope the damage done and the hurt caused to people will now be reversed as quickly as possible and town councils for a population of 5,000, as Deputy Howlin just told me, will be restored to their rightful position. That will mean a lot to those towns and invigorate them, giving them a real voice at local level, one that should never have been taken away.

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