Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is obvious that our local councils are held back by inconsistent and inadequate funding. I second Senator Ó Domhnaill's suggestion that we have a debate on the Moorhead report as soon as it is released. Councils cannot provide the services they are best placed to provide. Powers that suit local government are being chipped away and centralised. When I sat on South Dublin County Council, councillors who had joined it many years before me would remark that it had become a shell of a building. Water was the responsibility that was taken away from it in my time. It is the job of central government to provide local authorities with that stable and certain funding. In recent decades there has been a trend where this has been made impossible by the removal of certain powers. Consistently we have seen studies assert that this State has the least autonomous local government compared with our European counterparts. Experts such as Dr. Aodh Quinlivan and Dr. Theresa Reidy in UCC, and Dr. Mark Callanan of the IPA, have all produced damning studies on this issue. The international index of self autonomy uses seven categories, namely, legal protection, organisational economy, institutional depth, fiscal economy, finance, financial self reliance, borrowing autonomy, financial transfer system and administrative supervision, central or regional access to assess that. From 1990 to 2015, Ireland declined from the third least powerful local authority system to the weakest across the whole of Europe. Only Malta, Cyprus and Greece have less spending and less revenue raising capacity at local government level.

Currently, two thirds of local government funding is generated locally. Austerity budgets reduced funding for local authorities by 20% to 25% with the largest impact felt in housing, from €1.3 billion in 2007 to €83 million in 2013, with only 8,200 units delivered over that time rather than an additional 25,000 social housing units had budgets been maintained. I fear if we continue on the course we are on we will not only see a dilapidation of local services but it will guarantee that the public will see little value in local government. In contrast, our nearest neighbours in Britain offer much more at a local level and can act as a mudguard for ill-thought-out Tory agendas at national level. I have long believed that the conservative establishment in this State holds its place because the left cannot convince the public of its legitimacy, which is not an argument to get the Minister of State on board. We as legislators may not like every decision a council makes but we must appreciate and respect that councillors knowledge and the space they occupy is superior to our own in nearly every case.

I appreciate that progress has been made on directly elected mayors, which I have long advocated. That is a conversation which will hopefully re-evaluate the role and power of elected representatives and tip the balance back in favour not only of the mayor but also the council at local level. Will the Minister of State update us on the creation of a citizens' assembly for Dublin on that issue?

The conversation must continue and we must re-evaluate the role and funding of local government. Local councils should have stability and certainty in funding which should be provided by the Government on the basis of multi-annual budgets. I also commend the FÓRSA trade union for its call for a rethinking of local government and a restoration of powers. I strongly suggest that the Minister of State meets with FÓRSA on that issue. We cannot continue on the path of a combination of drastic cuts in funding from central government while removing powers which have left councils with little funding and little confidence from the people. Without review, local democracy will continue to decline. I spoke to local councillors on changing the Local Government Act and live streaming, and wrote to councillors on making it the law that council meetings would be live streamed. Many already do, including Dublin and Belfast, but many are concerned about the costs which have been put to them by their directors of services. By law, councils must provide the minutes and the agendas of the meetings on paper but in this day and age, all the monthly council meetings and the budget and development plan meetings should be online. If cost is an obstacle the Department should facilitate its provision.