Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is welcome and I thank him for taking this. I know the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, is indisposed this morning, but he is aware of this issue. In 2014, as the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, will also be aware, the Local Government Reform Act was passed. It abolished town councils throughout Ireland. That is probably a debate for another day, but when the town councils were abolished, they were replaced with a different decision-making structure, which was done through municipal districts. They exist in every county, except Dublin, because there were no town councils in any of the four Dublin local authorities, except for Balbriggan, where the town council was abolished and not replaced. There were no town councils in the Galway City Council or Cork City Council areas either. None of those six local authorities, therefore, got municipal districts.

It is a problem for the six local authorities - Dublin City Council, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, South Dublin County Council, Fingal County Council, Galway City Council and Cork City Council - because decisions cannot be devolved to municipal districts and, therefore, every decision has to be made by the full council. This is a major block to the efficiency of decision-making within the local authority. If one was in Kildare County Council, for example, there is a municipal district in Athy and the decision can be made at a local level to do something and the full council has the power to devolve certain decision-making powers to Athy municipal district. That makes sense because rather than the councillors in Athy having to go back to the full Kildare County Council to ratify a decision, they can make that decision locally where they have the expertise, knowledge, local stakeholders, etc. That cannot be done in Dún Laoghaire, for example.

Within the local authorities such as Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, there are area committees. These are important committees that sit for four hours per month, twice a month, on the first and third Mondays. There are two area committees within Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, with Dún Laoghaire on one side and Dundrum on the other. However,, if the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area committee decides to do something, they have to go back to the full council to make a decision on it, which means that there is further debate on it. There is a possibility that the area committee will be overturned by the council, although it is uncommon. Whatever happens, the few hours that the council has to meet every month is bound up in discussing matters that could have been decided at the area committee but because the area committee is not a municipal district committee, it cannot make those decisions. It seems that when the 2014 Act was passed, there was a gap in what was put in place to fill the places of town councils around the country, but not in these six local authorities. It means that decision-making is not streamlined in urban local authorities such as in Dublin, Cork and Galway. The reality is, therefore, that it restricts the ability of councillors to do the work, and it takes away time allocated to the overall council's business every month.

I am asking for the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to actively look at putting municipal districts into those six local authorities to replace the area committees. It is an efficiency measure, it is a fairness measure and it is also a subsidiarity measure. It will allow decisions to be made at the most local level possible and, to my mind, it makes absolute sense. I am hoping the Department will be well-minded about that decision.