Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his kind words. I acknowledge the support for the legislation from Deputies across the House. I thank Deputy Mitchell for her support at the joint committee. I will answer her specific questions.

We will have draft regulations ready on Monday and will issue them to the joint committee for consultation and to seek the views of members.

We signed a statutory instrument in 2020 to allow for remote voting. Members of local authorities throughout the country can continue to utilise that. To this day, many councils are using this facility for certain meetings. We obviously had to have a very legally robust statutory instrument at the time because county development plans were being prepared in the midst of the pandemic. Due to the fact that there were voting arrangements, everything which had to be legally sound. I am satisfied that such is the case.

In response to Deputy O'Reilly's points, I appreciate that there is more to do in the context of the Moorehead report. That is why I stated that this is part of the incremental change we are trying to make in order to improve the conditions local authority members operate in across the country. I understand the urgency and the concerns about the debate being held on a Thursday night, a matter which Deputy Cairns also raised. I am hoping that we can proceed with the Bill next week because there are a number of councillors who are about to give birth. One of them is about to do so this week. This House can move mountains at times to try to bring in legislation. I appeal to the Business Committee and Members across the House in that regard. This is a very straightforward Bill. It has gone through the stress test of passing through all the councillor representative bodies, the council members, the sub-group of female councillors, the joint committee's pre-legislative scrutiny and the representative of the various political parties. It would be great if we could get it finished next week. That is a plea on my part to the Business Committee. I hope Deputies support me on that.

Gender quotas were referred to. Such quotas are a challenge for local authorities. We are trying to incentivise political parties through funding calls to improve the conditions in which they operate. The incentives are in the form of supports for them to get involved in politics. The way the gender quota works in the national Parliament is that political parties are penalised if they do not meet the quotas. This is because they receive State funding for national elections. However, that is not the case for local authority elections. In other words, it is hard to get the stick to pin it on. We must do more work in that regard as we move forward.

Other items are dealt with in the Moorhead report. We will keep the House updated on the work of the group we have looking at them. They are non-pay items in the main. We have been funding calls like trying to have a family friendly toolkit rolled out in all the local authority areas across the country. Again, that is to support the members.

The matter of temporary substitutes was raised. What the legislation provides is very clear, namely, "The local authority shall have regard to the preferred choice (if any) of the member causing the temporary absence". The key here is that the local authority will have to ratify the person who will be the temporary substitute. I would be shocked and appalled if any local authority tried to stop a woman from taking maternity leave or dictate who should substitute for her. That is why we are liaising with political parties about how they do their business to have a policy about this. We need to be supporting women in politics and not be standing in their way in terms of having their choice go forward. The Minister reserves rights to issue standing orders requirements or directions under the legislation. I would hate to think that we might have to do something like this because, having gone around all the local authorities - and I have been around 99% of them now - the will is there. This is being strongly embraced, and I am hopeful that people will respect it.

I have great faith in the local authority system and in our council members, who are doing huge work in very challenging circumstances. As many Deputies pointed out, the issues councillors must now contend with when doing county developments plans are so complex that it is very difficult.

The issue of training was raised. We have worked with the AILG, LAMA and the Office of the Planning Regulator to get more training seminars for councillors in order to assist them in going about their daily duties. They absolutely need that support. As long as I am in this job, I will keep working to try to enhance the role of local councillors. I want to make it more meaningful and ensure that they have more devolved powers. That is what we are trying to do in Limerick, as Deputies will know. We want to ensure there are more powers locally. The changes in that regard are groundbreaking. I am aware that they can be difficult to contend with, but we are working as hard as we can to do these things. We hope that next week, fingers crossed, the system will move in the right direction.

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