Grace O'Sullivan (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I join with the statements of my colleagues on the hard work that our local government representatives do. County and city councillors put in a phenomenal amount of work to represent their constituents, create a better standard of life in their areas and support and strengthen their communities. They do this sometimes in a difficult political climate and without much compensation for their time and energy, which is worth noting.

We have discussed already the Minister of State's statements on the changes planned for councillors. On that point, I will reiterate what I have said already at the committee on councillors’ pay and conditions, namely, a simpler increase in the basic rate for all local authority representatives would be the most efficient and fair way to recognise their increased workload in the face of the reduction of total numbers. I would also ask that the committee be reconvened again and more regularly. We have not met, for example, since the Minister of State took up his current position and a meeting with him to discuss the concerns I am about to outline would be very welcome.

We have heard recently of proposals from the Government, or at least the Fine Gael part of the Government, to reduce the size of the local electoral areas in the upcoming local government review. I consulted with councillors in advance of my contributions today to seek their views on these proposals and, safe to say, the feedback was not positive from most who were in touch with me. Independents and councillors from smaller parties, in particular, highlighted that changes to the size and representation level of each local electoral area would severely lower the rate of representation and serve only the interests of the big parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, in getting a stronger hold over local government across the country.

At the same time, it would lower the diversity, not only of party political representation and competition on our councils, but also the diversity of representatives themselves. The changes we have seen suggested would cut the representation of Green and left-wing councillors by about 75%, which in itself would cut the female representation by about 25%. That would mean a reduction in the number of local electoral areas with at least one female representative from 80% to 60%. In turn, that would mean a subsequent reduction in the number of women in a position to be selected and available to run in general elections, something that will pose real challenges in the next election, when a 40% candidate gender quota will apply.

The noted UCC academic, Liam Weeks, suggested that a minimum representation of five or six is needed to ensure proper proportional representation for an area. This was also the recommendation of the Constitutional Convention in 2013. This needs to be wedded to the need for local electoral areas to go some way towards reflecting natural and coherent communities.

I can understand the attraction of a more homogenous and less diverse vision for local government for the larger parties, but I hope the Minister of State will join me in agreeing that a system of smaller local electoral areas would make our councils less diverse, less competitive and simply less interesting overall. Independents, Social Democrats, Labour Party representatives, socialists, and, yes, Greens, should all be united in opposing this power grab. I would hope the Independent Alliance especially will not allow this issue to stand when the Minister, Deputy Murphy, publishes the terms of reference.