Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I hope this process is not the same as Brexit and that there will be more information available to the people of Cork than there was to people in Britain during the referendum.

I am not from Cork, but I have some experience of this issue with Limerick having gone through a process, albeit it was a little bit different than the Cork process and more like what is planned for Galway. This is something that requires a great deal of consultation and a great deal of public information must be provided. A lot of discussion must take place and the relative benefits for a city and county arising in these situations must be examined carefully.

I have consulted with my Labour Party colleagues, some of whom are based in the city and some of whom are based in the county, to get a sense of their concerns. They are similar to the concerns which have been expressed here already. Residents of places coming into the city council area, including Douglas, Glanmire, Ballincollig, Blarney and other suburbs, want a service delivery plan in order that they know exactly what will happen with the variety of services they have been used to receiving from the county council. The Minister of State has gone through some of the issues and they are complicated, in particular as they relate to planning. The Oireachtas Library and Research Service has kindly provided us with graphics and documentation around what exactly will happen where, for example, planning permissions have been granted by the county council but implementation will take place following the transfer to the city council area. While I have very little time tonight, I would like to go into that in a bit more detail when more time is available on another occasion. In particular, I would like to tease out some of what the Minister of State said about next year and the financial arrangements in that regard.

In the time I have left tonight, I make a general point about the importance of planning. While we are talking specifically about Cork now, there is a bit of a mismatch nationally in relation to our cities under the national planning framework. In Dublin, one has for local authorities. In Cork, one is going to have two. In Limerick, Waterford and Galway, there will be combined city and county councils. It is not very coherent on a national level. We need to put some thought into longer-term planning and what exactly we are doing about cities. In my own area, the city mayor might be from the back end of the country. While that is not the case this year, it has been in previous years. It does not make for a great degree of coherence. These are the kinds of issues which need to be looked at. I agree with what has been said about a counterbalance to Dublin. That must include a number of cities, namely, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. I put in a word again for the M20 in that regard. The road linking Limerick and Cork must go ahead because the combined relationship across Cork, Limerick and Galway has real potential to be a counterbalance to Dublin. Obviously, that is a matter for broader national planning.

We must look at the broader context because things have been somewhat haphazard. We have been moving from one thing to another and trying to find a solution that works in different areas. For a long time in Limerick, we were talking about a boundary extension. We were talking about going into County Clare, which idea was abandoned very quickly. The Minister of State will know all the reasons why. Deputy Cassells has already outlined them. Things can look very different from one side of a line than from the other. That causes a lot of problems. It is not something which arises in the case of Cork but it certainly rises elsewhere. We need that broader view of what exactly we are going to do in future about coherent national planning, in particular in the context of preventing Dublin from swallowing up all of the opportunities at the expense of the rest of the country. That is not to leave out other parts of Ireland, including the south east and the north west, which often feel neglected. We have had broader planning debates in the House before. Tonight, we are speaking specifically about the Cork area, however.

We must also talk about directly-elected mayors. The Minister of State has indicated that he will be bringing forward amendments in that regard. In an answer to a parliamentary question from my colleague, Deputy Sherlock, it was indicated that it is intended to include provision for the holding of a plebiscite on the question of directly-elected mayors with executive functions in cities other than Dublin in the Local Government Bill 2018 to provide primarily for the alteration of the boundary between Cork City Council and Cork County Council. While that provision is not included in the legislation we are dealing with tonight, I understand amendments will be proposed on Committee Stage. It is a matter we need to tease out. We must look generally at providing more powers to local authorities. Other Members have spoken about the need for more funding for local government but the issue of powers is equally if not more important. All of these issues arise in the context of the Bill before the House. However, a lot of what needs to be done will have to be provided for by way of amendment because the provisions are not in the Bill as drafted. There are also issues regarding the number of public representatives in a given area. That is a matter of concern in the Cork context also.

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