Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

If it is okay with the Minister of State, I will contribute now for efficiency. Regarding my colleague’s amendment and the two years to three years, there are certain aspects we will come to later in the Bill that I am concerned may need a review, particularly the Schedule and the number of powers that are out of reach of the mayor. I think issues with the curtailment of powers for the mayor due to the excessive number of items on the Schedule that are still given to the director general will arise earlier than two years, frankly. We want to avoid public disappointment as mayors endeavour to do areas and are told it is the director general’s remit. The earlier we identify a problem such as that and address it, the better. We want to make sure that new legislation, if required, is in place before the next round of mayoral elections.

Amendment No. 6 is important. I hope this is an oversight. I genuinely hope the Minister of State will be able to accept this amendment.Amendment No. 6 refers to the text of the Bill as it is now in terms of the review. This states that when there is a review of how everything is going the Minister would be consulting "with the Mayor, Limerick City and County Council, the consultative forum and such other persons as the Minister considers appropriate". There is a big piece missing here, however. I refer to the elected members. Effectively, then, my proposed amendment, which is very small, simply seeks to insert "the elected council of", so that text in the Bill regarding the review would then read that the Minister would be consulting "with the Mayor, the elected council of Limerick City and County Council, the consultative forum and such other persons as the Minister considers appropriate". This proposed change is intended to ensure that the elected members are consulted with and not just, for example, the director general.

I will turn to what I imagine the intention was here. Everybody spoke about the importance of councillors, their perspectives and what they can bring to the table in this regard. It would certainly be a very poor review if one of the key elements of local democracy, namely, the elected councillors themselves, were not a part of the review. The text of the Bill, as it is phrased now, however, does not provide a guarantee that they are going to be a part of the review. I presume and hope this is an oversight and that this amendment is one the Minister of State is willing to accept in this regard.

Officially, amendment No. 6 provides that in the review of the operation and effectiveness of the Act under section 7, the Minister will be obliged to consult with the elected council of Limerick City and County Council. The amendment seeks to ensure that elected councillors are consulted as to the operation of the Act and that it does not end up being a case of just the director general or other officials within the council being listened to. This is important.

Amendment No. 7, which is also in this grouping, seeks to address an issue of long-standing concern, which is the power afforded to local councillors. We know, and it is very well documented, that the executive decision-making at local government level has for too long become quite undemocratic. The model we have currently does little to foster proper community empowerment or to strengthen local democracy. Last October, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe unanimously adopted a report that found Ireland to be compliant with only eight of the 20 principles in the European Charter of Local Self-Government.

Some of the findings are very important in this context. The report found that Irish local authorities had limited democratic decision-making powers. It highlighted the imbalance of power between the elected councillors and the chief executives in local authorities and the democratic deficit that created. The lack of financial autonomy was identified as a key obstacle to effective local self-government. Indeed, there was a further highlighting of the fact that local authorities do not manage an appropriately substantial share of public matters under their own responsibilities. It found that Ireland was not compliant with the principle of subsidiarity, which requires decisions to be taken at the closest point to the citizen.

I am highlighting this because our approach needs to be one that is comprehensive but we currently lack the real ambition to transform local government and give it the powers and resources needed to deliver sustainable communities. One issue is that local authorities in Ireland have extremely limited revenue-raising powers. In many cases, elected councillors have little or no opportunity to decide on discretionary spending. Again according to the European Charter of Local Self-Government, at least a part of the financial resources of local authorities should derive from local taxes and charges. We are an outlier in this regard. I have somewhat excessive notes in this regard about the situations pertaining in Finland, Sweden and Spain. Rather than going into detail on each of these examples, I will just say that there are autonomies and rights in all those countries in relation to measures in this context.

This is why our amendment No. 7 simply states that, "In conducting a review under this section, the Minister shall examine the manner in which the powers afforded to the elected council intersect with those of the Mayor and shall look to ways in which the powers of the elected council, including powers in terms of revenue-raising measures, could be increased". In Sweden, municipalities have the power in relation to revenue-raising, while in Spain, they have autonomy. Indeed, participatory budgeting is taking place in some parts of Spain at local level. In Greece, local authorities have the power to establish regulatory Acts and fees, contributions and entitlements. All of these are real powers at local level. In conducting the review, therefore, I ask that there would be an examination of how the mayor intersects with the local council and how the wider question of resources is addressed.

We talked about those people who stand in local elections because they want to make a contribution at local level and the incredible work done by these local councillors. Sadly, we also know about another aspect of this context.We see people who go forward in good faith and who want to be local councillors and to contribute but who find that they hit a wall and come up against limits in terms of their powers, including their financial powers. They feel that they are in a position where they are failing, not through their own fault, but through the limitations placed on them to deliver what they know is needed for their local communities. We have seen the frustration of many councillors regarding that issue, and we have also, sadly, seen many brilliant, capable people leaving local councils because they felt that they could not deliver as they would like to.

There is a step forward in having a mayor but it is happening within the context of a locally elected council. In terms of amendment No. 6, I again genuinely hope that this is a matter of oversight and can be addressed. Amendment No. 7 is a little bit more ambitious but I believe we should be more ambitious. I hope the Minister of State might also consider supporting it.