Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response. He is correct that the work of the staff of Tipperary County Council during the pandemic has been phenomenal. They are very much to be credited for that.

The Minister of State made the good point that local authorities already have shared services. My argument is that what I propose should be part of these. If you ask chief executives privately, they will tell you they do not want to be dealing with the sorts of staffing issues in question. They are best placed to understand them but that does not necessarily mean they are best placed to solve them. What we need is a system whereby people who underperform do not take it for granted that just because they are in a local authority, they are certain to be working in it for 40 years. That is the problem we have. There is an assumption among the public that people who work for a local authority are there for life, no matter what they do. Ninety-nine percent of people who work for a local authority are doing so because they believe in what they do and want to serve the public, but a small percentage, who are not held to account and who do not live up to those standards, are affecting every good, decent local authority employee. It is not good enough that we have representatives in this House and elsewhere who just stand up and say local authorities are absolutely hopeless. We need a system in place so the brilliant people who work in local authorities are not held back by a small number who are not held to account. I recognise there is a system in place to deal with the latter but it is not really effective. The Minister of State has been in local government and politics long enough to know we all know of people who have not been dealt with.