Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The power to set rates and the ERB is in the hands of the councillors and I am not taking away that power. The ARV will be frozen during the harmonisation of rates process. I mentioned the Council of Europe report. Unfortunately, Senator Norris was reading an earlier version of the report. I clarified that in the context of their positive contribution. The selection of local community development committee members is an issue of concern. I am certainly looking at amendments in respect of that and am very open to them. Members must remember that we have established a local community development committee to allow that committee to hold the contract for EU funds and there must be a bottoms-up approach to this. The membership of the committee are the people who will select the chairperson. I know one local authority that is a front runner in this process that will select a councillor to be chairman. That is up to the 15 or 17-member committee to do that. Otherwise, we will fall foul of the necessary rules and regulations that are required to draw down European funds in the future.

Senator O'Donovan talked about the ratios of population in west Cork. We had a situation where arguments were being made by places like Ballincollig that they did not have the same ratios of councillors to population as west Cork had previously even though there was a very substantial additional population in that area. No matter which way you do it, you will have anomalies. I understand that it is often difficult to get the right councillor-to-population ratio for rural areas and peninsulas but I have done all I can in the context of setting up the terms of reference of the independent commission to try to reflect that.

In conclusion, I may not have dealt with all of the queries that have been raised during the course of the debate but I will certainly tease them out with Senators during the-----