Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I had the courage to go to the courts. I lost it but I did not get a lot of support in this House. The day we got rid of the town councils and the day we got the elected representatives such as Deputies taken off county councils was a sad day because we handed over their powers to the county managers. They get two or three from Fianna Fáil, two or three from the Independents, and two or three from whichever else, and they go in and cuddle the manager and they kiss the manager and they give them a little job in here or a little job in there, and nothing else happens for the rest of the members. The time has come where we need real power in this country to bring back the elected representatives and give the powers back to them.

Getting rid of the Seanad was another great idea by civil servants and weak Ministers but they could not get rid of the Seanad because it had to go to a referendum. What did the people say? "No, we want our elected representatives and we need our elected representatives." They got rid of the health boards to take away, again, the elected representatives. They took away the members of the health boards and what happened? Now we have the HSE. I write to the Ceann Comhairle and give out to him every day. When I put down a Dáil question the next thing is I get a reply saying that the Minister for Health has no responsibility and that it is the responsibility of the HSE. I thought that the Members in this House were answerable to the people, but, no, they are not.

One of the previous speakers mentioned that we had county managers and assistant Secretaries General The minute they get out of those jobs, they get put on a State board. If they do not get on a State board, they are brought in as advisers to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, for example. They are brought in as advisers so not alone do we have the officials who are against elected representatives, we also have the county managers and former Secretaries General and assistant Secretaries General all being put on these boards to advocate against elected representatives. I want to ask a simple question of the Minister of State this evening and I also want to ask his officials. Why for so many years have they resented putting the local authorities under the control of the Comptroller and Auditor General? If I tabled an amendment to put the local authorities under the control of the Comptroller and Auditor General, would the Minister of State accept it? In every single report over the past 20 years, the Comptroller and Auditor General has been concerned at the way local authorities are operating. I would also like the officials to look at this. Yet they do nothing for them on the rates. If a government agency - be it the Department the Environment, Climate and Communications or the Department of Rural and Community Development - or whatever Department - gets a scheme done at any level in the local authorities, they take a bit off the top to do that job. I will give a very simple example. Deputy McGrath is the man like myself - and I brought it back - of the local improvement scheme, LIS. The Government put the money into it but what did the local authorities do? They took 13% to 15% off the top for their staff to go out and overprice the jobs anyway. We must do something about what is happening in local democracy. Another speaker mentioned why people do not vote. Why would people vote when they cannot get their hedges cut and when we have no outdoor staff anymore? We have more managers, more officials and more engineers but we have no outdoor staff only for the Tidy Towns groups - and I want to give them credit here today - including the Tidy Towns committee in my town. Shame on the county council since the new arrangement came in. They called it better local government but I call it bitter local government because that is what it was. We got rid of all the fine people that were in the local authority. They left because the county manager shoved them aside. How did the managers shove them aside? I will tell the House how they shoved them aside. If the job is going in Limerick, they would get on to the Department and they would arrange between them to set up the board. So the fella in Mayo would go on the board for the Limerick job, and the fella from Limerick goes on the board for Mayo. Whoever the manager in Mayo or Limerick wanted the job to be given to - even if he or she was not fit for the job but if he or she was the manager's boy or the manager's girl - they could get the job. That is what is going on in local government in this country.

I say this as somebody who came through the system. I was elected to the town council in 1979. Getting rid of town councils was the greatest scandal of all time. What should happen now-----

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