Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I join my colleagues in congratulating former Senator Kelly and wish him the very best in his newfound position. He reminded me he can look forward to a five year term. When we look at Seanad reform, the question of a fixed term should be examined.

I support the call for a debate on local government. It is opportune to have such a debate. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, has been looking at this area. The installation of a directly-elected mayor in Dublin should only be a very small part of overall local government reform. We need to rebalance the controls exercised at central Government level with those of local government. Our local democracy system is weak in comparison with those of most other western European countries and this needs to be addressed. There is a need for balancing in terms of the power vested in the executive side of council. There is an opportunity in a wide ranging debate for us to move towards achieving real local democracy in this country, an issue not addressed by successive Governments in the past despite pledges to do so.

We need to ensure councillors are properly resourced. While many good people lost their seats in the recent local elections there is a great deal of new talent coming on to local authorities. It is important they are utilised and given the resources to enable them to do their job properly. There are many demands on councillors. What they are paid is far from commensurate with the workload of any conscientious hardworking councillor. While people in the media might like to denigrate this, it does not stand up to scrutiny when one considers the responsibilities, workload and the range of expertise required of them. We need to debate this issue.