Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I listened with interest to Deputy Kyne and my other colleagues from Galway. The Deputy made a thoughtful contribution and we are having the debate that should have taken place over the past three years. However, the great and the good that decide our destinies in the Custom House decided that the last people who should be brought into the centre of this process are Oireachtas Members or local authority members. We were peripheral to this from the beginning. Expert groups are the new way of getting a view as they know better than all of us. If I want technical information, I go to an expert but if I want political information, I go to the people who stand on the ditches and get elected. The big difference is that the elected person must take the complexity of life into account rather than the narrow confines of an expert group dealing with a specific point of expertise.

We had a debate about this matter at our parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday. Deputy Cassells did not manage to attend. It was agreed at the meeting that we would support the Bill because we are in favour of the expansion of Cork city but we would not support the devious process in place in Galway. We oppose that. I hope the majority of the House opposes it. Every Deputy in Galway West, with the exception of the Government Deputies, who are in an invidious position, would do that. The other three Deputies oppose this.

We can go back to the arguments in favour of amalgamation, as this is amalgamation by stealth. The idea of putting in one county manager is part of the squeeze that has been ongoing for a long time. It is the first step and we will be brought in gently until we are so far in, there will be no getting out. Deputy Kelleher quoted some high-brow poem a while ago but I will go to a nursery rhyme.

See this speech in context