Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I suggest that the Taoiseach holds a public consultation on the role of local government. There was a very good presentation today by a number of trade unions organising members in local authorities. It pointed out that we are at the absolute bottom of the European league table in terms of services provided by local authorities, the level of funding local government gets, and the extent to which services that should be delivered by local authorities have been centralised or outsourced and privatised with damaging consequences. If we want to reinvigorate local government and local democracy, we should seriously consider a consultation on that.

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