Paul Bradford (Renua Ireland) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach for giving me the opportunity to raise the important issue of the proposed merger of Cork City Council with Cork County Council. I also thank the Minister of State, Deputy Deenihan, for being in attendance. I appreciate that the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, who is responsible for the implementation or otherwise of this report, cannot be present. Presumably, however, the Minister of State will report back to him. Along with other colleagues, I hope that we will be in a position to arrange a full Seanad debate on this matter in the very near future.

I come here with no fixed agenda on this particular proposal of the review committee.I served as a member of Cork County Council. I respect fully its history and its traditions and recall with fondness the people who served as very effective managers, engineers and county council colleagues. Overall, they did a very fine job in the management of County Cork. I think back to various chairpersons of the council whom I served with and those stretching back long before my time. They include significant dignitaries of State, such as former Deputy Martin Corry from the Fianna Fáil Party and William Broderick from east Cork, who chaired Cork County Council for over 30 years. We had people such as Philip Burton, Frank Crowley, Donal Creed and many others, who all ran a very effective local authority in conjunction with councillors and management. The interaction between councillors and the community was very much at the core of that success story. There was a feeling that local government was really local.

Likewise, Cork city, with its mayoral traditions stretching back generations, includes figures of significance in Nationalist history such as Tomás Mac Curtain and Terence MacSwiney, who served with distinction in the city hall as lord mayors of the city. In more recent years, Cork city was served with huge and effective distinction by a wide variety of figures, including the current Opposition leader, Deputy Micheál Martin, and I think in particular of the late Hugh Coveney, Jim Corr and many others whose leadership of their city council resulted in a huge dividend for the city. Again, there was a city lord mayor and a city council working closely with the people. I believe that concept of the people being close to local government - of local being local - made a very significant and positive difference.

One of the difficulties I have in understanding where the Minister is coming from is that, while this report is being considered and the Minister seems to have given it some degree of green light, at the same time, he has announced an operational review of the new local government arrangements under the Local Government Reform Act 2014. I am firm believer in local government reform. Having been a member of a local authority, I know much could be improved. However, and I say this not in any way as part of a political point-scoring exercise, I believe the butchering of our local authorities and the decision in 2014 to rid our county of town councils will be shown to have been a grievous error. While some of the town councils could have been more effective, the baby was thrown out with the bath water. We now have local authority areas in our county that are 60 to 70 miles long. That is no longer local government. If this bare majority proposal by the review group goes ahead, we will not even have local government as planned in Cork; we will have an experiment in regional government.

I come to the debate as somebody who, when I looked at the concept of change in Cork initially, could see a purpose for a single authority. However, I was looking at it as a very different single authority. I was not looking at it as a chamber of 80 or 90 members, who would then be split into three parts and would probably be working against rather than for each other. I wanted a new form of local government. What has been proposed, sadly, may offer the worst of all worlds. It is not a strong combined unit and it certainly is not local. Before he makes any decision, I hope the Minister will sit down with all of the stakeholders - the councils and the communities - because this is a very major step. I believe it is an experiment in regional government at the expense of local government.

If we were starting from scratch and there had been no 2014 changes in local government, we would be talking about strengthening local government, strengthening communities and ensuring that local government is real and is local. The Minister of State has travelled as much of the world as I, probably more. I believe one of the features of much of Europe and North America is the strength of local government. Every community has its council, its mayor or its representation. What is now being suggested here will blow all of that apart.

In conclusion, I concede I do not have the answers.I do not think any of us yet has the answers and the report does not provide sufficient answers. We must note the very strong minority report of two of the five members who put forward a very important view which will require deep consideration. I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Deenihan, to advise the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, to proceed with profound caution. Some have suggested the Minister would like this to be one of his legacies. However, it would be a dreadful legacy. I hope his legacy will be one of caution and a careful, inclusive response. I call on him to pause seriously and to think deeply before any further move is considered.