Deirdre Clune (Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for her contribution. While the Bill is limited in many ways, it forms part of the reorganisation of local government to which we all look forward. Members of this House who were elected by local authority members would have a keen interest in this area. The previously established bodies, to which the Bill refers, including the Limerick regeneration agencies, have served their terms at this stage. The Affordable Homes Partnership has had its day. The area I represented on Cork City Council had a considerable amount of affordable housing. People now find themselves with unaffordable mortgages. However, at the time it was a very real solution and gave young people the opportunity to live an area of the city in which they had grown up. It was good for the cities and provided new blood and potential for the schools and for the local services. While it is easy to look back now, at that time it provided a solution for young people in areas where housing had become unaffordable for them.

Much has been said about local government reform and much can be done. I read the recommendations of the local government efficiency review group, one of which was reforming the payroll and the cost of local government. It recommended a reduction in the numbers of the county and city managers by 30%; directors of services by at least 20%; senior and middle managers by 15%; and staff working in corporate services planning, roads and engineers by 15%. This is what people want to see in terms of efficiencies and reducing payroll in local authorities. That is where they want to see the cuts because salaries as we know have become excessive in many cases.

The payroll budget of local authorities has expanded over the years. The number of whole-time equivalents in local authorities has reduced by 18% from 951 in 2008 to 783 today. In my experience many of those reductions have come in front-line services and have directly affected the services to the local community. Most obvious is the landscaping and cutting of grass. I do not know why any manager or engineer responsible for a budget would not prioritise such an item because in many cases it is the first impression one gets when one arrives, particularly into the city of Cork. The verges coming into the city and at the airport have been affected by the cutbacks and there is insufficient funding to cut grass. Do people responsible for these budgets really thing about what their function is? It should be to provide a good impression of the city for visitors. I am picking on a small thing, but I see many instances where the decisions made to cut corners, which have necessarily been forced on local authority managers, have been in the wrong areas. We need to see reductions in staff numbers across the directorates and across senior staff members. That can be done very easily.

Within Cork city and county there is great scope to share services, particularly in the housing area. There is boundary that does not really exist as far as the public is concerned and yet it does in terms of local authority management areas. I welcome the direction the Minister I staking in establishing a national water authority, which makes sense in bringing efficiencies to the area. We have had the establishment of the local employment offices, LEOs, the one-stop shop. That is an ideal area in which we could have cross-administrative area shared services. Procurement, including the purchasing of computers, library books etc., could be done on a cross-county basis. There is considerable scope and we need to use our imagination and be innovative in how we reduce costs across local authority areas. The efficiency review group pointed to many areas. We might have another discussion on another day when I am not limited to five minutes in which to speak.