Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is an important debate and I understand what Senator Ó Domhnaill is trying to achieve. I will not pre-empt the speech of the Minister of State, but it is important in the context of the contributions of Members on the Order of Business today that we understand that accountability means accountability.That has many different facets, one of which means those of us who are public representatives having our queries or representations answered. The second one is us being able to avail of information in our role as Oireachtas representatives in terms of reports, agendas and minutes of meetings. In saying that, it is equally important we recognise that many of us have come from local authorities, as in we have been councillors and we have been involved in the process.

This is about ensuring that we enhance local government, that we consult, and that we do not alienate or divide, or do not move away from a cross-party collaborative approach to better local government. I note Senator Ó Domhnaill has had consultation with AILG and LAMA in the context of this debate. The Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, in his speech, will lay out how we can facilitate better local government in terms of accountability for local authority members. What Senator Ó Domhnaill is trying to achieve here is to support local authority members.

Councillors, such as Councillor Deirdre Forde to whom I spoke today, would be of the view that this Bill is important and necessary. There are misgivings in Government about the Bill and there are concerns and frustrations with it. It is important that we get the balance right. There is always, as Senator Coffey stated, that healthy tension between the Oireachtas and local authority. There is also that tension between the elected member and the executive in charge of the issue. What we are trying to do is make local government better. For example, at one time I had a different view regarding directly-elected mayors and I have now come to the view that we should have a directly-elected mayor in Cork city under the new local government structure. I compliment the Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, on piloting in the end the new local government structure for Cork. In fairness, the Minister of State was amenable. He was accessible. He had his own strongly held view, as many of us did. They did not sometimes agree, but that is fine. However, the Minister of State was there walking and talking with Members of the Oireachtas and with local authority members. I am digressing for a second, but in terms of the new local government structure for Cork city, I hope we might look at how we could extend the number of councillors to be elected. I believe we are gaining an enhanced city population base with 31 existing councillors being returned. Some will say we have too many politicians elected. I do not buy that argument. My point is we need to have more local authority members elected in Cork City Council.

The other point in the explanatory memorandum worth looking at is the statutory obligation to reply to elected members. The Dáil has parliamentary questions. There is no obligation on the Minister to come to this House on a request by a Member on the Order of Business. Ministers do not have any statutory function to come in to answer queries from Members which, I accept, is a different debate. I believe part of what we should try and do is to make accountability part of what we all should do. We are accountable in terms of us going before the electorate to be voted in or voted out, and that is part of what we do.

The import of what Senator Ó Domhnaill is trying to achieve in the Bill is a principle that we all share. I certainly hope that we can avoid a split in the Oireachtas tonight on that particular issue.

I thank the Minister of State for being here. I do not want to pre-empt his speech but when we see words such as "binding", "obligation" and "statutory", it scares everybody. The bottom line is we need to see accountability in what everybody does.

I commend Senator Ó Domhnaill for bringing the Bill to the House. Many members of our party at local and national level are supportive of the Bill. It is about making local government better. It is about enhanced accountability. It is about creating a better, efficient model of delivery of service to the elected public representative on behalf of the citizen who has put that politician into a position of importance which is called a democratic decision taken by the people.