Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This has been the most reforming Minister for local government we have seen since the foundation of the local government system. There has been a radical overhaul of the system. As somebody who has been involved in local government for 20 years and in response to Senator Paschal Mooney's last statement that local councils have been denuded of their powers, massive power has been given to district councils, devolved from county council level to local district level, which town councils did not have. That is a very positive aspect. Naturally, every councillor, Senator, Deputy and even the Minister cannot do everything in one day. He has only been in office a short time, but this has been a reforming Minister. He has always said he has local government at heart and we will see an increase in funding this year during which there will be a boost in funding to local authorities of €98 million, an increase of 11%. Therefore, we cannot say the Minister does not have local government at heart; he does, as he has shown. Some 44 functions have been transferred to district councils - that is democracy at local level. For the first time consultation with communities is being provided for in legislative form. We did have a consultation system in place in local government, but it was never written into legislation. We now have it in legislation.

I thank the Minister. He has stated he will keep an open mind in terms of a further devolution of functions. I look forward to further functions being devolved.

It is late in the evening and we have been debating a long time, but the Bill is worthy of debate. Reform of local government at the lowest possible level is where we are at and going. When I was elected first in 1990-91, what the Minister is doing was recommended in the Barrington report in terms of the devolution of power to district level.