Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and support the Bill. As a co-signatory, I consider it to be a measure that will support and strengthen local democracy. I often refer to the outstanding and unacknowledged work city and county councillors do on behalf of the people who elect them. Not only are councillors the cornerstone of our democracy, the issues with which they deal encompass every aspect of citizens' lives. The number of representations they receive on behalf of their constituents makes theirs a 24/7 job. Unlike Senators, they do this without a full-time secretary or research assistant and are the most under-resourced elected members in our democracy. More importantly, they are charged with oversight of local authority performance across all indicators, including budgets and programme performance. To do to this work, they need timely, authoritative and reliable information which answers their queries on behalf of the public and enables them to assess how the executive is performing. In the past decade local authorities have invested heavily in management information and reporting systems and it is now easier than ever to harvest requested information. They should also be congratulated on putting in place customer service charters setting out clearly and unambiguously the nature and quality of service people can expect in their dealings with them. While members of the public are customers, we must remember that councillors are also customers - very important ones - and should be afforded the same high level of service, if not higher. It came as a large disappointment to me to learn that legislation was even needed to guarantee what was promised in those charters and to ensure a uniformly high standard of customer service to councillors across all local authorities. We in the Oireachtas are all well looked after, in that the Local Government Act 2001 (Section 237A) Regulations 2003 set out statutory provisions for local authorities in their dealings with Members of the Oireachtas. The regulations provide that each local authority must deal with requests for access to information by Oireachtas Members, "as expeditiously as may be and in accordance with a proper level of customer service." It was a major oversight not to have included councillors in that regulation, so I welcome the way in which Senator Ó Domhnaill's Bill addresses this serious omission. I cannot see why local authorities could not have dedicated email addresses to deal directly and promptly with councillors' queries or why a member of staff in corporate affairs could not be assigned to deal solely with such queries, gather information from all relevant sections and feed it back to councillors within the agreed timeframe.

The successful introduction of freedom of information legislation across the local authority sector has shown us that, if a regulation makes it compulsory, information will be provided within the timelines. It is not just the timeliness of information provision that is essential, though, but the quality and completeness of the response. This must be guaranteed.

The proposed legislation is not a criticism of the information and query service currently being offered by local authorities to their members. We know that many councils have excellent relationships with their councillors and go the full mile to ensure that councillors have the information they require. These are relationships built on trust and mutual respect that facilitate a two-way flow of information and knowledge sharing. Instead, the Bill addresses the unevenness of the essential core customer information provision across all local authorities. It reminds us yet again of the ways in which previous legislation has failed to acknowledge fully the role and workload of city and county councillors. This is an opportunity to redress that situation and send a strong message to councillors and the executive of local authorities that representational work at local level continues to be a valid and significant part of the democratic process. I support the Bill and I look forward to the Minister of State's response.

When Senators discuss local authority issues, many draw attention to the fact that they have also been city or county councillors. I am privileged, in that I have never been one, which allows me to see through a different lens. Legislation has not been kind to councillors.