Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for taking the time to come to the House. I thank the Cathaoirleach for allowing this matter which has been raised in this House many times, namely, the terms and conditions for local public representatives. I thank all my Seanad colleagues in Fianna Fáil for supporting this important matter. Following the local elections, I congratulate all those who were successful in election to local authorities to represent their communities and constituents for the next five years. What concerns me and many of my colleagues is that they are not adequately resourced or compensated for the enormous job they have to do.

There were 1,627 councillors at the election previous to the 2014 election, but going into the 2014 election we were down 678 councillors. We have the lowest public representation per head in the European Union, worse than the United Kingdom which is second lowest. Our figure is one representative for every 4,000 people where the United Kingdom has a representative for every 2,000 people. In France, which is the best, there is one public representative for every 78 citizens. This shows the scale of the gulf between what other European countries do and what we do in Ireland. That is bad enough but the powers given to public representatives at local authority level are the lowest in Europe. The responsibilities given to councillors are the worst in Ireland of all EU states. They must look after more constituents than anywhere else while central government has taken more and more powers and decisions away from them, year in, year out.

The consequence, as we have seen in the local elections, is that some areas had few candidates. In one area, only two candidates were not elected. Many constituencies had 19 and 20 people running for seven seats but in many areas parties - Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and the rest - struggled to find candidates. Many conventions were not contested because the workload increased while the amount of money that councillors are given and the supports they are given did not. Some councils have secretarial supports for local representatives but this is not uniform, and it must be made so. There have been various proposals. We are anxious to see the report which was supposed to come out at the beginning of the year but has not. Clearly, no one on the Government side wanted it to be published prior to the elections as it might dissuade more people from running. Many people who did not know what the future would hold have decided not to run again.

Will the Minister of State say what is the Government's plan? Why has it not published the report? I hope that when it is released, the Minister will debate it in this House and in the Dáil. At the next local election and the one after that in ten years, there could be entire local electoral areas where there will be no contest. We will be looking for people to run at local authority level. Not only are people struggling because they cannot get supports from the Government and they are not adequately compensated but also they do not have the power that they should have and that other countries give to their local authority members, and that has to be addressed. It is a two issue problem. The terms and conditions are important because, as the country reaches full employment, people will have more demands on their time and they will not be able to give the time. I note that the survey, which was one of the reasons given for a delay in publishing this report, was based on the previous set of councillors. While many of them have been re-elected, we need to look to the future. As the Minister of State and the Government are well aware, the concern is that very soon we will not have enough people going forward for local elections.