Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was distracted there for a bit, a Cheann Comhairle. I was listening to that contribution. It was very interesting. One would wonder what Fine Gael did to local authorities at any stage. They participated in the fiasco that we have in terms of local authorities - Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and every Government - and that is the problem. Out-of-government control would make a big difference to it.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. There is no doubt the system of local government is in urgent need of review and overhaul. The legislation presented an opportunity to reimagine how our local authorities should be run, yet, instead of using this opportunity to empower local authorities, the Government has brought forward legislation that is almost as weak as the local government system itself.

Shamefully, but unsurprisingly, Irish local government has been placed third last out of all EU, OECD and Council of Europe states in terms of organisational autonomy. Not only do our local authorities have issues with representation with Ireland having fewer elected representatives per population than most other European states, there are also serious functional and design issues. Due to institutional design, councillors have little or no power at all as they are completely dominated by the executive of the council, who is appointed by central government. It seems the purpose of the legislation is to give some power to one elected member, but giving minuscule power to one of 949 elected councillors is unacceptable and undemocratic.

Councillors are quite happy to participate in that system and go along with. We have the fiasco of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and, as they were at one time, Independent Fianna Fáil, all pretending that they govern Donegal County Council when actually they do not; the county manager governs it. The councillors are quite happy to go along with it, make it look like that they are in control, appoint a mayor every year and it looks like that they are doing the business when they have no say whatsoever.

Decisions being made at local level should be made by elected representatives and not by Government-appointed staff. This type of system forces councillors to act as opposition, rather than decision makers. It is also extremely rare, as Ireland is one of three countries in the world that uses a council-manager model.

However, it is not good enough to merely give elected members the power of the council executive while central government continues to dominate local government. We need to significantly expand the remit of our local authorities. This is what this Bill should have looked to do but this Government has no interest in giving more powers to local authorities. The legislation has merely been put forward to score a few political points. The Government does not care about local democracy. People have been calling for local government reform for decades and after years of successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael-led Governments continuously dragging their heels on this, the legislation put forward today is incredibly disappointing.

Although it is a positive step that there will be a directly elected mayor for the first time in the history of the State, we have to put this into context. This is merely one change in one of our 31 local authorities. It is also completely unrealistic for us to think that introducing a directly elected mayor to a system that is already incredibly weak and broken will make any bit of difference. We are creating a position within the context of a highly centralised state. I actually believe that this will only serve to disempower voters who will be severely disappointed at the lack of power the mayor that they directly elected has.

Research highlights problems when a mayor with a popular mandate has little power, with voters feeling frustrated and confused. This would be a major step back in recent efforts to engage constituents with local politics and elections.

I understand that sections 30 and 35 provide for the relationship between the mayoral office and central government. However, the Bill does not outline what exactly this entails. I suspect this is merely a PR opportunity rather than an opportunity for any real engagement.

Section 53 also provides the mayor with a power to request and receive information, and a power to request to be consulted. However, there are no real teeth to this either. The legislation does not include a deadline for the receipt of information and consultation. Being a TD, I also have the ability to request information via parliamentary questions. However, this rarely means I ever actually get the information that I request and one can understand why I would be sceptical that this mayor-Government relationship will hold any weight.

From reading this legislation, it is hard to decipher the exact functions of the mayor and of the chief executive. We should have a list of existing executive functions and I am not sure why this was not established before the legislation was introduced. It seems like many functions will remain with the chief executive, but the lack of clarity and cultural issues within councils will no doubt cause issues in the future. I am glad that the duty to prepare and present the budget will be transferred to the mayor. However, this should be the responsibility of all elected members rather than the mayor.

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