Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We cannot change the cards we are dealt. On a serious note, there is no doubt this is substantial legislation. Change is needed, nobody disputes that. We are all aware of that. Some very good measures have been proposed, such as the diaspora having a voice and possibly an all-Ireland vote. As I have stated here the people have already spoken in respect of the Seanad. The people voted and elected to keep it. I am not sure if the way forward is to massively change its format.

I come from a councillor background having been a county councillor for seven years and a member of Mullingar Town Council for five years until the brain wave to get rid of town councils. That has been a serious backward step for local politics and towns up and down the country. Deputy Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil have talked about reintroducing town councils. That is one of their proposals under local government and the local government review. The policy programme Putting People First - Action Programme for Effective Local Government, was published in 2012 and abolished town councils. In some cases it gave councillors substantially larger areas to cover at greater expense involving a greater amount of time. The cost in terms of time was phenomenal. There were half the number of councillors as heretofore and the amount of work, as many members can testify having been in that circuit, doubled overnight when town councils were eliminated. Putting People First was going to give much power to councillors.I have heard it referred to as being sold a pup, but to be sold a whole litter of them was really the trick. The cut of powers and the diminution of all that was good about county councils was incredible. When I started off, one had certain powers in planning which were taken away under Putting People First. In my county, refuse collection services were taken away. The "in thing" to do was to remove refuse collection services.

The number of housing bodies I know the Minister deals with on a daily basis is incredible. I believe there are upwards of 1,000 housing bodies operating in Ireland, many of which are sitting on banks of money and currently twiddling their thumbs. In fairness, the Minister is making a great fist of trying to tackle this situation and to move it along. I have recently seen the new approach regarding housing and how the Minister has worked hands-on in a couple of different projects in my own county on which I commend him. Consider, however, all the powers that have been taken away. From the time I was in Westmeath, there have been many roads subsumed into the National Roads Authority. Putting a sign up to advertise a business on a road became incredibly difficult. I have a feeling we are going in the same direction. I will not even get into our friends in Irish Water, but I have a serious feeling that we are heading in the same direction with this Bill.

I welcome the legislation because I believe we want to see change but many of the councillors' powers have been taken away and now we are about to take another one of their powers, which is their link to national politics. If a councillor has a national problem, he or she can lift the phone to their local Deputy. Nine out of ten times the Deputy will not want to hear from the councillor because he or she is looking out for their seat, or they may want to do something else or are looking at the bigger picture. In general, a Senator is not in that space. I can attest to this from my experience with great Senators from my area over the years, including former Senators Donie Cassidy and Mary O'Rourke, who are both former Leaders of the House, former Senator and Deputy, the late Nicky McFadden - God rest her - who was the sister of Senator Gabrielle McFadden, and Senator Camillus Glynn. All of these people were super Senators and any councillor could lift the phone to them at any hour of the day or night to discuss a problem, be it medical cards, passports, national roads or any concerns they had. The Senators could deal with them and get an answer at a national level. It was a great help to us as councillors.

I am curious about one particular part of the legislation with which I would disagree. As I have outlined, the main element of this Bill that may need to be changed appears to be the nominations by councillors. The Taoiseach's 11 nominees remain and the six from Trinity College Dublin and the National Universities of Ireland are also still there. If it is not possible for the national university nominations to be changed, could the Taoiseach's number be changed? They were originally intended to ensure power in the Upper House rested with the Government. However, even with those numbers, that is not currently the case and it probably will not happen going forward with modern politics as they stand. It makes for a redundant argument. With the university selected Members, those of us who were came through the vocational panel know that every vote was worth 1,000. Maybe there is some way the university panels could nominate their people and because every vote is worth 1,000 votes, their vote could be some sort of equalisation in an election with the councillors' vote having a heavier weight. Perhaps this could be examined. Do I have one minute remaining?