John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies who contributed to the debate. It was very interesting, and I am something of an anorak about matters relating to local government. I cannot support the legislation drafted by Deputy Howlin.

Nineteen Deputies spoke in the debate and they gave some good reasons as to why they feel the changes were not suitable and have not worked in some areas. My fundamental principle is that when people vote in local elections, they should have one vote, as in national elections. The previous Victorian system, introduced by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 and referred to by Deputy Butler, created a situation where certain individuals who lived in certain urban centres had two ballot papers at a local election. There is much work to be done in this area and perhaps there is not much between my view and those of other Members as to how we develop an integrated system of local government. We can all agree that the county as a unit, outside of the larger cities, is the primary identifiable geographical division by which local government should be implemented. Is there a method of ensuring that our towns can be more strongly or better represented within the county structure? Our current system has 30 local authorities, which is enough.

I note the contributions regarding representation from Deputy Lawless and others. Deputy Cassells spoke about a councillor for every 118 people in France. It would be interesting to have that in this country, although that proportion is perhaps too low. Our system is undoubtedly on the higher end but we are also over-represented at national level. Perhaps we should cut the number in the Dáil in half and double the size of local authorities to bring us more into line with international norms, or we could have our own proper integrated system of local government

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