Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the positive news regarding a discretionary fund and the more long-term changes that are required. In regard to the policy paper, I should give credit where it is due. It was published in the Economic and Social Review. I will send a copy to the Minister of State. Three of its authors, namely Gerard Turley, John McDonagh and Stephen McNena, are based in Galway. It was prepared in collaboration with a man from the Berlin School of Economics and Law whose name I will not attempt to pronounce. The paper is worth considering. It looks at the international evidence and the variation therein and at the need to look at other ways of achieving efficiencies, which is what all Members want.

It has been a battle to get this far. I wish that my energy had been used to examine public transport for Galway, for which there is a crying need, as Deputy Fitzmaurice stated. We have a major housing crisis to which I will refer later this evening on Second Stage of the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2018. I wish that the Government was zoning in on those real problems on the ground. Neither the councils nor their councillors asked for the local authorities to be merged. The proposal came from the previous Fine Gael and Labour Party Government which set up an expert group. Those on the ground were appealing for the Government to work with local representatives and councils on regional imbalance in towns such as Ballinasloe which need to be developed. I worked in Ballinasloe for many years. Those are the types of problems on which I would like to work, rather than a nonsensical battle on a merger that should never have come before the House.

I do not welcome the fact that the Minister of State will revert in the autumn as that is far too soon. He and the Department should reconsider what this is all about and go back to the expert group which, regarding preconditions, stated "the Expert Group believes that the amalgamation of Galway City and County Councils must be preceded by the addressing of the existing deficiency in respect of both the human and financial resources available." It further stated that the "financial resources available to both Galway City and County Councils fall[s] short of that available to comparable authorities and is insufficient to deliver on the role envisaged for Galway as an economic driver for the West." I am a very proud Galwegian but I do not think that Galway city should be developed out of proportion to towns in rural areas of Galway. We need balanced development. If we have learned anything, it is that the county of Galway is very important. The merging of the councils is not the answer. I ask the Minister of State and the Department to go back and look at the evidence on the ground to find a better way to proceed. As the Minister of State is relying on the experts, I ask that he, please, rely on their highlighting of the fact that the councils cannot effectively function because they do not have enough resources, rather than because they are too small. Obviously, that should be dealt with in the first instance.

I have previously spoken on this matter and will not take any more time except to once again thank the Seanad and my colleagues in Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil and the Independent Deputies who have forced the Dáil to see sense.

This is a very good example not of negativity but of the new Dáil that prevents measures being pushed through without their being based on evidence. What jumps to mind is the event in the packed audiovisual room recently. A series of people came forward to talk about science-based evidence, yet a measure was introduced without it being based on anything. I am delighted, therefore, that sense is prevailing and that the Minister of State has spoken about a discretionary fund. I look forward to working with him but I certainly would like to focus on the real problems on the ground in Galway, including housing, public transport, health and an overall plan for the city. There is no such plan because in my time as a city councillor, the city council told me it did not have the resources to produce a master plan for the city, putting the common good to the fore. We are actually now reliant on developers for a plan for the city. The council will have some input but it will not be the driving force. The excuse given to me was that the council did not have the resources to produce a master plan. Can one imagine that we are back to developer-driven development in Galway, a city whose housing crisis is equal to that of Dublin?

See this speech in context