Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ní mór dom a rá i dtús báire nach mbeidh mé ag caitheamh mo vóta ar son an Bhille seo. Seachas bheith dírithe isteach ar na fadhbanna tromchúiseacha i nGaillimh - cúrsaí tithíochta agus tranglaim tráchta go háirithe - ceapaim nach bhfuil i gceist anseo ach am amú, airgead amú agus acmhainní amú. Nuair a bhí mé ag breathnú ar an reachtaíocht seo agus ag léamh na tuarascálacha uilig, bhí iontas orm i dtaobh an mhéid atá á dhéanamh ag an Rialtas. De réir mar a thuigim, tá Páirtí an Lucht Oibre ag tabhairt tacaíochta don mholadh atá romhainn. Níl a fhios agam faoi Shinn Féin go fóill.

I will not be supporting this Bill. I say that as a person who has served at local government level for 17 years. I do not believe I ever missed a meeting. As a committed councillor, as many of the councillors in Galway city are, I have read all the reports. This issue arose in 2015 when the then Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, for some reason, decided to set up an expert advisory group. That group comprises business people, one professor of social work and a barrister, all of whom have no experience at council level. That was the original group and it subsequently became the expert advisory group with the addition of managers and former managers. I have a serious question about that expert group. The then Minister, Deputy Kelly, in 2015 stated:

The ambition is to create a stronger Galway. The major urban centres are critical to the economic success of their wider regional hinterland.

He set up the Galway Local Government Committee and it reported in November 2015. The two interim reports that I have read are internally inconsistent. They refer to citizens and customers. They also refer to benefits but acknowledge that both local authorities are struggling with the resources they have, both financially and in staff terms. They cannot even do what they are supposed to do. The proposed amalgamation will not save any money because the councils cannot save any more money because they are operating on such a limited budget as it is.

We must ask what is proposed. In a Bill that is focused on Cork, and I will leave it to the Cork representatives to talk about Cork, a tiny paragraph about Galway has been inserted. The Minister of State when introducing the Bill referred to that paragraph. He stated:

Part 5 amends the Local Government Act 2001 by inserting a section to provide for a single chief executive with dual responsibility for [both councils]... This will facilitate administrative integration of the two local authorities.

He cited, by way of precedent, Limerick, Tipperary, Waterford etc.

Why that would be in this Bill beggars belief. It has nothing to do with Cork and, even if it was the right decision, the conditions precedent, which came from the so-called expert advisory group, says that certain things have to happen first. It was not the appointment of one manager for both councils but to address the lack of staff and resources and it refers to a transition director. None of that has happened. Yet, one paragraph covering this proposal has been inserted in a Bill dealing with Cork. At the very least, justice would demand that would be taken out of the Bill. I understand Fianna Fáil intends to do that and I hope it does. If it does not, we will table an amendment proposing that it be removed. It makes no sense for it to be included in this Bill.

I can only judge the substance of the Bill from what I have read because we have not been given anything else. This Bill was not referred to a committee for prelegislative scrutiny and I do not believe a cost-benefit analysis of this proposal was carried out. I see no reason we would vote to have this proposal as a first step. I ask for sense to prevail, to remove this proposal, start again and examine the real problems in Galway city. The Government increased the number of city councillors to 18 and to 39 on the county council. As I understand it and I am open to correction on this, not one of the 18 councillors, who are very important stakeholders, was in support of this proposal. I went forward and made a verbal submission. I regretted having to go to a private hotel to do that - which is an instance of what happens - rather than that taking place in a public building. I raised my concerns. I do not believe any one of those 18 councillors said this was good and each and every one of them engaged with the process. In respect of the 39 county councillors, and I open to correction on this and Deputy Grealish might be more au faitwith the numbers, almost 99% of them said not to do this. If the Government is going to have a consultation process and 99% of the combined councillors are saying not to do this, and the Government goes ahead and does it, what kind of democracy is that?

The Government is proposing a larger local authority which, as acknowledged in various reports and research undertaken, will lead to a larger gap between the people it is meant to serve and those in charge. That runs totally against the Lisbon treaty, which the House has continually been informed is the best thing that ever happened. In fact, the treaty is so good that we had to vote on it twice. One of the specific clauses in the Lisbon treaty involves an absolute binding legal commitment to ensure that decisions are made as close as possible to the citizen. What is proposed here is the complete opposite.

The November 2015 report states:

A starting point for the committee is an acknowledgement of the broadly successful delivery of services and economic development in the current configuration of local government in Galway. The committee acknowledges the broadly successful delivery.

It also indicates that thoughtful submissions were received. However, the overwhelming majority of these were against the amalgamation. Of the submissions received, ten were simple acknowledgements, 23 expressed a broad preference for maintaining the status quo, only 14 expressed a preference for a merger and six expressed no preference. We must ask who were the 14 individuals or organisations that expressed a preference for the merger. They included the chamber of commerce and other such organisations but not the elected members - 39 and 18, respectively - of the two local authorities involved. The latter were overwhelmingly against the merger. As already stated, the experts acknowledged there were thoughtful submissions but they did not act on them. They were convinced on balance but that balance was not based on evidence. While the experts acknowledged that the current configuration works reasonably well, they were convinced this is not the optimal configuration on balance. There is no evidence to justify that conclusion. The experts stated that the merger would be broadly cost-neutral and they found it difficult to foresee any savings. The report indicated that local authority staff were struggling because of underfunding.

The second interim report from April 2018 states:

The group notes the significant revenue underfunding of the Galway local authorities relative to comparators, in addition to staffing constraints in key areas. On the basis that the existing resources available to both organisations are not commensurate with realising the vision of an effective amalgamated authority, the expert advisory group recommends that the existing deficiencies in respect of both the human and financial resources be expeditiously resolved as an essential prerequisite to the amalgamation process.

The expert group dealt with staffing levels and stated:

In respect of staffing numbers the figure for Galway County Council is 751.40 WTE or 4.2 staff members per 1,000 population. This staffing complement does not compare favourably with the staffing level of the most comparable counties ...

Arising from this, one would have imagined that action would have been taken. However, no action has been taken. Quite extraordinarily, all of the effort and money which has gone into these three reports has taken attention away from the existing problems in Galway. Professor Eoin O’Sullivan, the group's chairman, stated in his foreword to the June 2017 report that the group had met on ten occasions over the previous five months to examine the technical feasibility and implications of the amalgamation of the local authorities. It took that length of time and that number of meetings to confirm that the merger would be technically and administratively feasible.

I am zoning in on this because there is a serious crisis in housing in Galway. Our housing waiting list dates back to 2002. Galway has major traffic congestion because of the absence of a co-ordinated plan for public transport, school transport and park-and-ride facilities. Rather than meeting them twice a month to deal with these problems, the expert group was examining some future amalgamation. All the while, there was an acting manager in the county council, which placed him in a particular predicament, and a manager in the city council who does not know what he is doing on these issues, although we were reassured this has not affected them. It is difficult enough for Deputies to perform here while wondering whether a general election will be called tomorrow. Imagine having an acting manager in a county council for a period and that person not knowing what is happening. While this is going on, we are getting letters from people who are living in appalling housing conditions and concerned about traffic congestion but no action whatsoever has been.

Outside Dublin and Cork, this will be the largest conglomeration of people in the country. What is proposed for them is based on the recommendation of an advisory group, with no expertise at local authority level, to the effect that what is proposed is, on balance, better economically. IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and Údarás na Gaeltachta are involved. We want to make a large local authority with less democracy. For what? This will involve the third largest population grouping outside Dublin and Cork, stretching from the Gaeltacht, to the three Aran Islands and Inishbofin to Portumna and on to Ballinasloe. Such a geographical variation could not be catered for under such a large local authority. As matters stand, people in Connemara and on Inishbofin feel they are not heard when they are struggling to get basic services such as a health centre fit for purpose. They are struggling to get the ear of the local authority but we are going to make it much bigger in order to satisfy some whim of Deputy Kelly when he was Minister in 2015.

Even if I am totally wrong, it is stated in these reports that there will be no cost savings and that nothing in particular will be gained from the merger. There is reference, however, to a general economic gain. I would be the first to acknowledge that an economic gain is important. However, what is more important is the illusion - I admit I have become even more cynical - of democracy. We are now going to remove that illusion to a larger local authority against everything the people want on the ground.

It is acknowledged throughout the relevant report that there are excellent shared services. From experience, I know about this in the context of the fire and library services. The report in question acknowledges that a high degree of co-operation already exists in joint organisations. Why would the Government set up an advisory group to compile three reports? The answer is that it was to divert attention away from the serious problems that exist. Those problems relate to underfunding and a lack of staff. This is acknowledged everywhere. I pay tribute to the Library and Research Service, which gave us all the information, quite neutrally as one would expect, in the Bills digest.

There is an assumption that bigger is better but we know from the evidence that this is not the case. Only the other day, we attended a presentation sponsored by Science Foundation Ireland in the audio-visual room at which 16 individuals spoke for one minute each and told us about the importance of evidence. We have the evidence. Making something bigger for the sake of making it bigger is not a good solution.

This ignores the evidence on the ground that both local authorities are struggling because of a lack of money and staff. What I object to most is that we are talking about enhancing democracy but since my election to the local authority in 1999, I have watched local authorities being stripped of powers. With regard to waste management, Galway achieved 70% recycling in a pilot project and 56% diversion from landfill on a regular basis, while on a shoestring budget. The response of the Government was to privatise the service which has gone backwards since then. Equally, responsibility for water was taken from the local authorities resulting in a loss of experience and knowledge on the ground. The expert advisory group says that local authorities should be increasing services. It does not look at what is happening in reality and talks generally about an increase in service provision, including social welfare. The expert group is suggesting that social welfare-type services should be included in the remit of local authorities. While there may well be an argument for doing that, this suggestion is evidence of the type of internal inconsistencies and contradictions that exist in all of these reports.

This provision has no place in this Bill and makes a mockery of what elected representatives have sought. As I understand it, most of my former colleagues in Galway West, apart from those in the Government party, are not in favour of this. What is the point in having a consultation process? The cynicism of this is hard to take. Perhaps I am being naive in asking the Minister of State and the Government to reflect. Maybe it is beyond the Government's ability to reflect but reflection is an essential part of a functioning democracy. We must reflect, read and learn and take action based on evidence. This is not based on any evidence.

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