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

I know, and that is absolutely outrageous. However, I am changing that. There is a committee, which will have legislation shortly on how Members of the Seanad should be elected in the future.

I wish to deal with other specific issues. Members spoke about this Bill being cost neutral. It is not cost neutral. Deputy Howlin spoke about 100 towns with a population of 5,000 or more. Interestingly, Deputies Butler and Aindrias Moynihan said they were supporting the Bill because it would bring back Lismore Town Council and Macroom Town Council. Those two towns are far below the population threshold of 5,000 so perhaps they should have read the Bill before they contributed.

I believe the reason Deputy Cassells's legislation, which was passed by the House, has not been discussed since then is that there was a report due before the Cabinet on local government and local leadership. That was approved by the Cabinet. I find it frustrating, as the spare leg in the Customs House who is not directly involved in housing, that most of the issues discussed by the housing committee relate to housing, which is natural given that it is the biggest national issue at present. It is difficult to get time to discuss local government matters. I would prefer if there was a separate local government committee, and most Members here have served on local authorities, or if there was a subgroup of the joint committee to examine local government. We could have a proper and full discussion there, without shouting at each other, as to how we wish town councils, county councils and local authorities to progress in the future.

Deputy Browne said there were no savings. There have been savings. Some €21 million was saved following the mergers of Tipperary, Waterford and Limerick local authorities and between €18 million and €20 million was saved through the abolition of town councils. It is not necessarily a huge amount but it is untrue to say no savings were made. I was struck by Deputy Cassells's comment that there was an anti-town attitude in county councils across the country. Perhaps that is the case in Meath but I never encountered it. Perhaps Kilkenny was unique. There was one urban centre and everything else around the county was much smaller but there was never a sense of anti-urbanism.

Fianna Fáil's deputy leader, a man for whom I have great respect, made a strange contribution in which he spoke about his ancestors being town engineers. He let the mask slip a little when he said Fine Gael never did well on town councils and was always opposed to them, the corollary being that Fianna Fáil always did well on them. I do not believe that this is behind Deputy Howlin's contribution or behind most of the contributions to the debate but there is an element of patronage involved in town councils. It offers a role for local party activists, who can be paid by the rate payer or the property tax payer, to become involved in the political activities of an organisation or as an independent in seeking election. I got a strong whiff of that from Deputy Calleary's contribution, which is unusual for him.

There was nothing much from Deputy O'Loughlin. Deputy Murphy O'Mahony spoke about town councils being the bottom rung of the ladder and said that people could stand for further elections after being on town councils. They did serve that function to an extent but that is not necessarily a good enough reason for them to exist in the future.

With regard to Drogheda, it is in the same boat as my own part of the world in Kilkenny where the borough council was abolished. The new Drogheda borough district was drawn up and most Members who contributed to the debate have acknowledged that the recent review of local electoral areas has made an attempt to make them more manageable geographically. It has also made an attempt to make them more manageable in terms of the focus on towns. Deputy Howlin has spoken to me several times about Wexford town. The new Wexford borough district corresponds to Wexford town and its immediate hinterland. My local town-----

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