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

Fair enough. I am just saying that the representative group for councillors favours the municipal district system. It also favours giving the districts more power, autonomy and money, which is the point I was trying to make. Deputy Fitzmaurice referred to the strengthening of the municipal districts. Part of the meeting we will have with the Galway members will be about that very issue. I have said from day one that rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water in terms of municipal districts, we should strengthen them. Deputy O'Dowd spoke about municipal districts performing more functions locally but, under the current system, there is no reason for Drogheda municipal district not to have a housing section or to perform other functions to which Deputy O'Dowd referred. The issue is that Louth County Council will not allow it. That is a matter for the members and management of Louth County Council and no local government Bill will solve it.

In response to some of the other points that Deputy O'Dowd made, under the national planning framework Dundalk and Drogheda have been identified as growth centres. As I signalled at an Oireachtas committee meeting a few months ago, additional resources should follow on from that identification. We are now on the verge of delivering some of the funds that were announced under the planning framework. Alongside the additional funding is a requirement for extra staff and I have no difficulty in devising a system that marries the national planning framework to the local government structure, which would see additional staff being provided to centres earmarked for substantial growth into the future.

Regarding Galway, I would stress that the consistent under funding to which Deputies have drawn my attention will be addressed in part by the review of the rates of local property tax and the system of allocation. That review is almost complete and is examining the structures under which local property tax funding is given to local authorities. It will take into account the population of local authority areas, levels of deprivation as well as existing income and expenditure commitments given by local authorities. It will also take into consideration Government priorities in the context of the national planning framework in particular.

I assure Deputy Ó Cuív that there are no plans, in this or any other legislation, to reduce the number of councillors in Galway. The section that deals with Galway is only concerned with the first stage in appointing a joint chief executive. I have responded to the points made by Deputies Michael Collins and O'Dowd already. Deputy Eugene Murphy does not favour amalgamation and said that we should not base our local authority structures on those that operate on the continent, which is not what we do. We have a county system here. I am a believer in one authority per county, whether it is Kilkenny, Galway or Limerick. Deputy Jan O'Sullivan spoke about the fact that there is a different local government system in operation in Dublin, which has four local authorities. The Citizen's Assembly is due to examine the local government structures in our capital city next year. I maintain, and I have said it in the House previously, that Cork should never have been one county in the first instance. It is far too big. That said, if we want to make Cork city a real counterbalance to Dublin, with a population of 250,000 and rising, then it should have a separate local authority. Every other local authority in the country has somewhere between 30,000 or 40,000 - as with County Leitrim - and 250,000.

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