Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. One might ask what interest is a directly elected mayor for Limerick to me and what consequences it has for Galway and Galway East. I requested time to speak on this because while it sounds great to have a directly elected mayor, the functions of that mayor and the additional functions he or she will have compared to a Cathaoirleach of a local authority is relevant. Giving somebody authority and functionality is fine but will he or she have control over budgets? Therein lies the problem. Deputy Richard O'Donoghue referred to the lack of power of councillors to get devolved authority to make decisions within the local authority. This is clear when one looks at the way local area plans are developed in local authorities, for example. The forward planning section will bring forward a set of maps outlining what the local authority is going to do on the basis of certain principles. Councillors on the ground know that it is not going to work but they are coerced into agreeing to it because if they do not, it will go to the Office of the Planning Regulator who will then make recommendation to the Minister and the power will be taken away from councillors if they do not do what they are told. That is happening a lot in our local authorities. Often local area plans are zoning land for residential or other purposes that will never become available. This creates additional costs for construction by reducing the amount of land that is available. There is talk about increasing densities and all that goes with that but it is actually fairy tale stuff.

It is not the fault of the Minister of State. It predates him and I commend him on his efforts to get this Bill straightened out so that we can get it passed. The local authority structure as I knew it when I became a member of Galway County Council in 2004 has changed dramatically. We did not have active travel at that time. We had very little in the way of flood relief schemes or minor works schemes. They had just been brought in by the former Minister of State, Martin Mansergh, at that time. We did not have the urban or the rural regeneration funds, the town centre first scheme or the likes of the vacant property scheme, Croí Cónaithe. We have asked the local authorities to become the instrument by which these schemes are being delivered but have not resourced them properly to do that. Sometimes I get frustrated when I hear that a team has been set up to do active travel in a particular local authority. I wonder what that is all about and why it is not being done by the regional office. It creates a sense that there is a team there but the team might be one engineer or one part-time member of the administrative staff who is trying to do something for the entire county. We must be fair to ourselves and to the local authorities who are trying to administer all of these schemes, which are very good schemes, because they become very bad schemes when the people are not there to administer them. If a person has to wait six to 12 weeks for someone to come out to inspect a vacant property before it is approved for a grant, that is wrong. The scheme has failed that person who wants to get on with the work, move into the house and get out of a rental situation.

The fact of a directly elected mayor in Limerick is fine and dandy but if it is tokenism, we might as well put the Bill in the bin now and forget about it. How are we going to get the local authorities back to a situation where they have the resources to deliver what we are charging them with delivering? The other big issue is the pull between Irish Water and the local authorities in terms of delivering wastewater infrastructure. The local authorities are still being charged with doing feasibility studies for the new €50 million scheme that was announced by the Department last year. Local authorities are being asked to submit proposals and do feasibility studies for wastewater treatment plants but where is Irish Water? What is it doing? What is its role? What did it cost to set up Irish Water? What was the purpose of setting it up? If Irish Water is charged with delivering public water and wastewater infrastructure, it should be charged with delivering it to every rural village and town as well as to the large population centres. We need to get this right for once and for all because what we have at the moment is a tennis ball going back and forth between Irish Water and the local authorities. The local authorities are doing all of the work by way of feasibility studies and so on but they do not make the decision as to what works will be done.

Back in 2004, we had a works programme for wastewater treatment plants in our county. Some of these plants were past the feasibility stage and were ready to go to funding stage. Irish Water came along and the whole map was cleaned of all of these proposals and they still have not come back onto the list. What is the relationship between Irish Water and the local authorities? How are we going to get to a stage where one entity is responsible for the delivery of all wastewater and public water services? Otherwise we are just splitting, dividing and conquering and ending up in a situation where punters who want to build a house are finding it very frustrating because they do not know where to go to get relief. I had a case last week where a guy who wanted to build a house was told that he had to apply to Irish Water for a connection agreement and that it would take 26 weeks. He was also told that the local authority would have to be consulted too. Directly elected mayors will not help that because the system is wrong and we need to get it right. That said, I appreciate the efforts of the Minister of State.

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