David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I did not interrupt the Senator. The Government tried to abolish the Seanad while cutting the number of Deputies and councillors, but there has been no real reform or devolution of power. When we debated the Local Government Bill, I challenged the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to indicate one power that has been devolved by any Department to local government. He was unable to point out even one single power.

We saw, of course, that he transferred power over water services to a quango that ended up being an absolute disaster. Even the Bill that gave effect to that was guillotined through the Dáil, so we had to come back and deal with the mess afterwards.