James Bannon (Fine Gael)

—in the voice of the local people. It was very high-handed of the Minister. In 100 years of local government there has never been such an erosion of the powers of the elected members. This is shameful and disgraceful.

The Local Government Act 2001 was hailed as a wonderful document because we thought it would create better local government and more powers to the locally elected members and that there would be a real decentralisation of powers and reform of local government. This Bill is quite contrary to that. It is eroding the powers of the elected members and bringing in more stealth taxes. The Bill proposes to give county managers the sole power to impose refuse charges. It is the greatest con job imposed on local authorities for many years, a huge attack on local democracy.

The Minister has cut funding and he has now cut power. He is on a loser on this issue. A great opportunity to implement some real reform in local government management was lost. The Bill suggests that councillors are incapable and cannot be trusted with the overall responsibility of a council and the Minister has given this power to managers.

His predecessor introduced an amendment which at the time was only to last for three years, in order to accommodate some of the people putting together the regional waste management plans. The elected members listened to their constituents and in a few cases made better proposals than the people who put together the plans. The proposals from the members for the minimising and recycling of waste would not be as damaging to the environment. Incineration is more dangerous than landfill.

It was always the case that officials were accountable to councillors and councillors were accountable to the citizens. This ensured that the views of the people were taken into account at every opportunity. This section threatens the future of democracy. Local self-government is the very basis of democracy and the Minister has thrown it out the window. The State wants to be responsible for everything and yet deliver very little. That has been the case since this Minister took office. He has introduced legislation that has eroded the powers of elected members.