Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy John Paul Phelan. As a former councillor, he is aware of the important role councillors play in communities. I am speaking to the Bill on behalf of the 949 councillors across the country who represent people daily. Local representatives need greater support in working for their constituents. The Bill will provide that support. It provides for the setting of a statutory timeframe of 14 days for replies to queries from local authority members, thereby ensuring the representative and the citizen will be heard.

The Bill is also about members of the public who seek the assistance of councillors daily. When I was a councillor, I received many representations. We must listen to the public. In that regard, the first port of call is a councillor. We need to ensure we represent them. There has to be a response when representations are made on behalf of a member of the public. We will tie the hands of the local councillor if we do not insist on this. For some time local representatives throughout the country and their constituents have felt that they are unheard because everything seems to happen in Dublin. Often representations are passed from one Department to another, which is unacceptable. When a councillor, a Senator, a Deputy or a Minister makes a representation on behalf of a member of the public, he or she deserves to have them responded to quickly because that is what the member of the public expects and deserves.

We need to empower local representatives to ensure they can play an active role in addressing the concerns of their constituents. We need to strengthen, rather than weaken, local democracy. Ireland has the lowest number of councillors per head of population. Public representatives are the first port of call for citizens. Therefore, we need to ensure local government is strengthened. A major change in councillors' conditions was the expansion of local electoral areas to cover much broader geographical areas. As a result, they now represent broader and larger populations. The Bill will reflect this change by further empowering them, which is good. Like me, the Minister of State was a member of a town council. The abolition of town councils has been a disaster. Following on from their abolition, there are fewer councillors and smaller budgets but larger geographical areas. The Bill will go a small way towards helping councillors to achieve the best results they can.

Fianna Fáil's empowering communities policy document calls for the establishment of town councils in towns with a population of over 7,500 people and the creation of new voluntary community council structures in areas with no town councils. The abolition of town councils has been detrimental to the people.