John Dolan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is welcome back to the House. He brings a good heart and good intentions to this issue. Reflecting on it and listening to other Members, it appears to me that the ways and means committee might need to do a bit more work on it. However, it goes in the right direction. The whole issue of having a fair and equitable system which is seen as such by all involved is critical.

I focus today more on context, ambition and where things are moving to. Certainly, there have been many developments over the last number of years. I note the community development element, the economic side of it and whatever. That is very important. We have three Houses of the Oireachtas in the Presidency, the Dáil and the Seanad. As such, it is time to have the ambition to see local government and councillors stretching to be involved, while staying rooted in their communities, in whole-of-the-nation issues from a local perspective. That is important.

Councillors need resources. There is an income issue but there is also the issue of resourcing them to be better able to do their work. I am thinking of one thing in particular. There are a lot more civil society groups in Ireland today than there were 20, 30 or 50 years ago, including sports clubs, disability groups, local cultural groups, economic groups and farming groups. Councillors should be able to work in a more consistent and organised way with those groups and bring that thread into it. We have seen the change in the last number of years as councillors have stretched themselves to new areas of work. I see no reason that will not continue.

Like Senator Black, my experience over the course of the Seanad election campaign was of meeting people with good hearts and intentions who were looking to do the right thing. They were stretching themselves beyond regular local authority and health issues to help people. We have a lot of people who are not happy about politics and politicians in general. The place to start to bed down, consolidate and bring people back to an involvement in politics is at local level with local authorities and organised groups.