John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Senator Norris said that it was a missed opportunity and I tend to agree with both of them. In respect of the way municipal districts were established, if I go two miles down the road in my local electoral area, I am in another electoral area or municipal district. They were meant to bring about more powers for county councillors. I have spoken to many councillors around the country and there is no change. They have no extra powers. When one looks at my county of Roscommon where the town of Athlone and villages like Athleague are flooded, what powers do the councillors have to do anything about this? They can do nothing about it.

Yesterday in the Seanad, I raised the case of a company called Global Flood Solutions that is based on Athlone. It sells its flood solutions product all over the world yet the Government will not do business with it to solve the problems in our country. It is crazy. I know the HSE spent a lot of money on that product last year and it stored the product in a building in Roscommon town that was flooded. It is a huge issue in which councillors need to have some say, which is not the case at the moment.

The Athlone municipal district was established with Monksland as a part of it. Monksland has the biggest rate base for Roscommon County Council. As soon as the district was established, they spoke about putting Monksland into Westmeath thereby taking away the entire rate base. It is now with the Boundary Commission as we speak. I do not know if a decision will be made by this Government. I certainly hope not because the people of Roscommon will not stand idly by and allow Monksland to be taken away and given to County Westmeath. There are also implications for the GAA. There are three clubs in that area that would be split if this came to pass so I encourage the Minister of State to make sure that nothing like happens regardless of what is reported by the boundary commission.

We saw the "RTE Investigates" programme on Monday night. That is not reflective of the majority of county councillors around the country. Most of them are hard-working and decent people who would not take a penny for any effort they make on behalf of companies. It was a bit surreal that they posed as wind farm developers because for the past number of years, I have thought about how wind farm developers can come and out of counties, manage to get planning permission, resist every road block put in place by the people and manage to get their way. It was interesting how the county councillor in County Donegal tried to more or less say that this is a tricky issue and that he would have to pretend that he was on the side of the people but that behind the scenes, he would be with the developers because there was money in it. I was always of that opinion. I do not think RTE decided to pose as wind farm developers out of the sky. I think they know an awful lot more.