Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was elected by them and honoured to be elected by them. I received a very good vote from them and I am here to represent them and advocate for councillors and support them in their work. I was a councillor myself and I know what is required to do the job, particularly to do it well. I am happy to stand up and advocate for city and county councillors who work exceptionally hard.

The Minister of State, Deputy John Paul Phelan, has a brief for local government reform. It is one of his many briefs. I know he has vast experience of local government himself, and I do not doubt his commitment. I want to put on the record and acknowledge the enormous work that public servants do throughout local authorities, but they have an issue. It is not that they do not necessarily want to communicate with councillors. They have an issue with resources. They need more resources and staff to get on and do the job. It is in the interests of every chief executive and county manager to work well with councillors and vice versa. It is in the interests of every city and county councillor to work well with their chief executive.

This is a very simple Bill, and I do not understand what the complication is about it. It is a Bill to provide for better replies and response times from local authority officials to local representative queries. That is all very simple. I would expect that for the public. Every member of the public should also have this particular right that we are trying to achieve. What are the aims of the Bill? They are simple. They are to provide a consistency of response times across the entire local government system, the introduction of a binding obligation on local authority officials to issue an acknowledgement to the member within seven working days, the introduction of a binding obligation on local authority officials to issue a comprehensive response to the member within 14 days, and the introduction of a league table scheme or system compiling data on response times from each local authority on how replies to members are delivered, to include quarterly publications. I hope the Minister of State will stand up and fully embrace all of this.

I remind people that the AILG and LAMA are supportive of the Bill. There are Senators in here who bellyache about reform for councillors, but I do not see them in the Chamber today. Are they afraid to come in here and make a case for city and county councillors? Do they simply just not give a damn? Where are they? Where are their excuses? I appeal to anyone looking in today to call on all of the Senators elected to Seanad Éireann to account for their absence this evening, when they were given an opportunity and given notice to support something very basic to support city and county councillors in their work. It is exceptionally disappointing. It must be exceptionally disappointing for the Minister of State to look across at every single seat empty in front of him. That is the reality of it. They are not empty on this side of the House.