Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)

The people to whom I referred are members of the board and none of them is a public representative. That is my concern. None of them was elected to public office and they have been appointed to do a job which should be part of local government reform, which we were promised as part of the programme for Government and which may not happen for a number of months now that the Local Government (Mayor and Regional Authority of Dublin) Bill is being siphoned off as a stand-alone Bill.

The local government reform which we were looking for, through the White Paper, is now taking place under the 106 recommendations of the efficiency review implementation body. I ask the Minister of State that, every two months, the members of the board would be brought before the Joint Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to be challenged on the review and efficiencies they are to implement as part of their programme of work and questioned, as part of their job in implementing the report, on the rationale behind the decisions in the report and whether they will bring about efficiencies, make a difference or deliver better local government.

To return to the issue at hand and the Bill, it will come as part of a more comprehensive document and a White Paper and I look forward to it coming to the House at some stage in order that we can have genuine reform of local government debated by Members of this House and the other House and implemented by elected representatives, not by an efficiency review implementation body which was not elected by anyone.