Results 5,861-5,880 of 7,082 for speaker:John Paul Phelan

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: I will never forgive Senator O'Sullivan for not having got me the tie ten years ago.

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: Perhaps Listowel is a bit big, but in the town out of which I operate, Thomastown, in Kilkenny, there used to be a number of drapery shops until quite recently. Now there is one left, and the sad reality is that they are not coming back because people my age and younger than me buy their clothes for the most part online. How can we develop a funding stream for local government on the basis...

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: Senator Burke mentioned local area plans and local economic and community plans. Section 30(4) allows the city council to make a statutory amendment to an existing county council plan in the interim. In response to Senator Buttimer, section 37 of the Bill will allow the Minister to extend the period within which the city council has to make its new development. The Senator is right.Making...

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: Section 31(4) four emphasises that if the city council seeks to apply a development contribution scheme under section 48 of the Act of 2000 or supplementary development contribution scheme under section 49 of that Act in the transfer area, it will apply as it would apply in the rest of its functional area. Special development contributions will follow the transfer area into the city. The...

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: I have acute hearing in this ear.

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: We are at early stages yet with the drafting of the Galway merger Bill. There is an idea of where we are going as it is not reinventing the wheel in the sense there have been other mergers. NOAC has been given the power, but perhaps not the resources, to audit local authorities. The former Senator and Deputy, Michael McCarthy, is the newly appointed chair of NOAC. He is keen about his new...

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: In direct answer to Senator Ó Domhnaill's question, I do have sympathy with the county council, which expended considerable funding on the Blarney Tower part of the potentially expanded Cork city, because that money was spent at least partly in the belief that it would generate income from development contributions in the future. It is a limited sympathy in that one of the functions of...

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: I have a 12-page response, but I will not read the full 12 pages. I said last night – half of my speech was not included in my script – that we had developed a notion of political discourse not only in Ireland but also in most of the western world that if there was political disagreement on a matter, there was automatic disrespect. On Senator Gallagher’s point, I have...

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: I am not talking about my party colleagues, I am talking about a former Independent councillor who is now a Minister, Deputy Seán Canney, who has been a leading advocate for the merger. He comes from one of the larger towns in County Galway which, as some would say, would suffer in the event of the merger. Would he support it if he really felt that Tuam would be destroyed? Instead he...

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: I have probably said enough.

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: It is late in the evening but we have had a discussion that has been wide ranging and necessary on Cork -----

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: The impact that this proposal in the Bill will have on Galway is very minor. The real Bill will come next year, and is mostly a Galway Bill but it will be called the local government Bill. If this part is rejected tonight we will still have to deal with all of that in the middle of next year.

Seanad: Local Government Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2018)

John Paul Phelan: This amendment will change the Long Title of the Bill to reflect the changes that have just been made.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee Report (15 Jan 2019)

John Paul Phelan: Section 22(a) of the Local Government Act 2001, as amended by section 19 of the Local Government Reform Act 2014, provides for the naming of municipal districts, including the naming of certain municipal districts containing the administrative areas of former boroughs. In December 2017 the Department established two local electoral area boundary review committees. The terms of reference...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee Report (15 Jan 2019)

John Paul Phelan: The paper on municipal governance, which was proposed by the Department and agreed by the Government, is currently before the Oireachtas joint committee. I do not think it has yet got a chance to discuss it, but it goes into some of the detail to which the Deputy refers. Specifically identified is the return of some version of the old block grant that town councils used to have and which I...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee Report (15 Jan 2019)

John Paul Phelan: -----the other things being considered are additional reserve functions, decisions on local capital works and local disposals of property by municipal councillors from those borough districts.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee Report (15 Jan 2019)

John Paul Phelan: The commitment I can give the Deputy is that it is my intention to have the legislation in place before the new councils take office, which will be following the local elections at the end of next May. However, the Government is not responsible for the business of the House any more. The report to which I referred on additional powers for municipal districts across the country has been with...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Commercial Rates (15 Jan 2019)

John Paul Phelan: Local authorities have a statutory obligation to levy rates on property used for commercial purposes, in accordance with the details in the valuation lists prepared by the Commissioner of Valuation. The Annual Rate on Valuation (ARV), decided by local authority members annually, is applied to the valuation determined by the Valuation Office, to calculate the amount payable. Rates income is...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Local Authority Members (15 Jan 2019)

John Paul Phelan: On 21 June 2018, I announced that, with the agreement of the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform, I was commissioning a review of the role and remuneration of local authority elected members and published the terms of reference for same. I appointed Ms. Sara Moorhead SC to conduct the independent review. In accordance with the terms of reference, Ms Moorhead submitted an...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Local Area Plans (15 Jan 2019)

John Paul Phelan: It is my intention, in the coming months, to publish legislation to place local authority cross boundary cooperation on a statutory basis in certain circumstances where urban settlements have extended beyond county boundaries. These provisions envisage the establishment of urban area committees where the results of a population census show that at least 1,500 persons or 10% of the area's...