David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

For a Minister with responsibility for this area – it may be more apt to say a Minister who is grabbing responsibility for this area – to refer to community development projects as private companies shows that appalling lack of understanding. These were companies limited by guarantee in the first instance. These were companies made up of voluntary members from community development projects who lived in the communities. They did their job in a voluntary capacity. They made up what was a voluntary board of management. The Minister seems to gloss over the fact that all of these community development projects were under the control of Pobal. Therefore, there was oversight and accountability from the Department of the community development sector. The point is that there was a community element. The previous Government took away the community element. The Minister is now not only supporting that but taking the whole area and putting it into local government and giving the power to unelected people in terms of the influence that the county and city managers or chief executives, as they will be called, and directors of services will have and the local councillors as well.

It is interesting. The Minister made a charge that I was being hypocritical because I was saying on the one hand that no new powers are being given to local government but at the same time I am not pleased with the powers of local development being given to local government. Is it not interesting that the only real power, the only power of substance that is being given to local government and councillors is by way of taking away power from the bottom up and from the local community? Not one element of power is being devolved from any Department. It is a matter of keeping power in the centre and all the Departments hanging onto their power and none being given to local government. The Minister is taking away the little power and influence that people at community level had.