Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber to discuss a topic that is generally under-discussed in the Houses of the Oireachtas, namely, the roles of local government, councillors and councils. Local authorities certainly comprise the point of democracy closest to the citizen. While local government was funded from a central resource for many years, it was such that the functions of local authority members might have been under-utilised. The powers given to local authority members under legislation were not what they should have been. Therefore, everyone was waiting for the reform of local government, which was promised prior to the last general election. It was much anticipated by all local authority members, including town council members. Town councillors constitute the point of democracy closest to the citizen. Unfortunately, my reading of the local government reforms is not entirely in keeping with that outlined by the Minister. Powers are being removed from local authorities and their members. There is a cost-cutting exercise, and the point of democracy closest to the citizen is being moved away from him or her. This cannot be welcomed.

Let us consider the disempowerment of citizens in towns over the past 18 months during the Minister's watch. The Minister outlined that he is giving local authorities the autonomy to collect money locally and make their own decisions on spending it, but he did not say that he has actually removed the local government fund since he became Minister. The local government fund is a central taxpayer fund for local government. The Minister has asked local authorities to collect septic tank registration charges, household charges and property taxes, which are about to be introduced. He is in the process of further removing power from local authorities by setting up a new quango called Irish Water and removing the water services function from the closest points of contact to the water user, namely, local authorities.

The removal of town councils must not be and is not being welcomed throughout the country. In Letterkenny in County Donegal yesterday, I noticed a number of people on the streets. Citizens are really only becoming aware of what is happening in regard to the removal of town councils. Town councils are the most efficient, and arguably the most effective, government structure in the country. They constitute the decision-making point closest to the people. Town councillors are not working for vast sums of money but for very minimal sums, and they are working very long hours. We all know town councillors, of all political parties and none, who are effectively giving of their time voluntarily. Eighty town councils and over 700 town councillors are being removed from the equation. Existing town councillors may not run for election again or may not be re-elected. The people will lose the opportunity to elect a town council after the next election.

Local authorities have been disenfranchised further through major cuts, including the removal of the local improvement scheme grant. The latter was available down through the years, during good times and bad, to help elderly people and farming communities to fix the roads leading to their houses.

That scheme is gone. Local authorities have cut funding for housing grants for elderly and disabled people. Local authorities, including my own in Donegal, are not in a position to let local authority housing. They cannot comply with BER certification requirements and upgrade the houses because they are not getting the funding. There are at least 100,000 people waiting on local authority housing. Many local authority houses are lying empty and cannot be let. I know of one estate in my constituency where the windows of nine local authority houses are boarded up. It is turning into a ghetto because the local authority cannot undertake the work required for BER certification. It has applied to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government but no funding is forthcoming. That is not renewing or incentivising local government.

We must be frank here. The energy and the money are being removed from local government. We are coming up with a new plan, which is really a cost cutting exercise, but we are supposed to be putting the people first. How the hell are we putting the people first if we are removing democracy from the closest point of contact? The Minister is providing additional county councillors but he is removing the people who deliver democracy at the closest point to the citizen. He is depriving towns with rateable functions from keeping rates to develop them. If we look at the western seaboard, Sligo and Letterkenny are two of the main towns in the north west, but they will suffer. Letterkenny will suffer greatly from the removal of the town council which has served it well down through the years. It was in a position to borrow money to develop the Aura leisure centre and so on. That will all be lost under the proposals being brought forward by the Minister.

This is disguised as giving additional powers to local authorities. The Minister said the county enterprise board function will be subsumed into the local authority structure. That is true and it is in the document but it is not the right thing to do because local authority members, including county managers in most counties, already sit on the boards of the county enterprise boards. Funding for county enterprise boards is stand-alone - in other words, projects can make applications and obtain funding. We will now amalgamate them with local authorities.

Leader funding, which is available through the Minister's Department to community groups and businesses, has been under-utilised because the conditions are too stringent and the grants cannot be drawn down. The Minister proposes to bring all the local partnership companies under the auspices of the local authorities. Again, local authority members sit on those boards. There has been a total of lack of discussion with the partnership companies, which are doing excellent work, and that needs to be clarified. Why is the Department refusing to talk to workers or to SIPTU in regard to the alignment with the local authorities? Do these workers, who have provided a service over the past 20 years under the Leader programme, not deserve to be consulted with? They have no pay scale and their money has been cut year on year. Why are they being brought under auspices of the local authorities? Instead of funding local authorities properly, the Minister is using the Leader programme to bolster local authorities. If we are serious about providing local democracy and decentralising power, we have to fund local authorities properly.

I refer to another local authority function, namely, the septic tank registration system. The telephone lines in Donegal County Council have been hopping over the past couple of weeks. Officials are unable to answer a basic question. If people register, what are the standards? The Minister has not published the standards and ¤50 is being requested. Will he consider extending the deadline for two or three months and publishing the standards in the meantime? He should be clear so that people know they are not buying a pig in a poke and that they can register when they know what the standards will be. Would the Minister to do that because it is the sensible thing to do and it is being frank with the people?

One year after the legislation was brought in by the Oireachtas I cannot understand the reason the inspection plan was not published. We were fined by Europe as a result of that. Second-----