Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Boyhan for raising this matter and for his continued interest in local government issues. As it happens, the monitoring delegation from the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe will travel to Dublin on 14 November next for a post-monitoring dialogue on its 2023 monitoring report. As a result, I am grateful for the opportunity to come before the House today on behalf of the Minister of State with responsibility for local government and planning to provide an update on Ireland’s progress towards full compliance with the European Charter of Local Self-Government. The recommendations of the 2023 monitoring visit, as adopted at the plenary meeting of the congress last October, have helped us to identify areas in which we are achieving, as well as areas where more needs to be done. The Government is committed to this process. As the report acknowledges, Ireland has made significant progress since the visit of the previous monitoring delegation in 2012, most notably through the provisions of the Local Government Reform Act 2014.

Reform of local government in Ireland is an evolving process. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 was an important step in that evolution, and the introduction from this year of a directly elected Mayor with executive functions in Limerick, with the potential for other local authority areas to vote to follow suit, is another key reform milestone. The Mayor of Limerick, who has been elected for a five-year term, has taken some executive functions of the former role of chief executive. The Mayor also has new functions and responsibilities, particularly in relation to the long-term, strategic development of Limerick. Crucially, this new office of Mayor recognises the role of the democratically elected council and the council continues to exercise its reserved functions. In the performance of his role, the Mayor is, therefore, fully accountable to the elected council, not just to the electorate every five years. An important feature of the Act to establish a directly elected Mayor of Limerick is that there are regular, statutory consultations between the Mayor and national Government, which meets one of the recommendations of the congress’ report.

With regard to the report’s recommendations to broaden the scope of local authority functions, functional areas and services currently under the responsibility of local government include social housing and homelessness, land-use planning and transport. The 2014 reforms introduced new economic and community development functions to local government. More recently, vital statutory roles in relation to climate action and maritime area planning, among others, have also been assigned to local government. These are substantial functions assigned to local government and the success of local authorities in managing these has been fundamental to the State’s ability to manage its response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine humanitarian response and the integration of thousands of new arrivals into communities around Ireland. In all, local authorities deliver over 1,100 services, working in partnership with some 30 central Government bodies.

With regard to the report’s findings in relation to the financial independence of local government, the funding system that applies to local government in Ireland is a complex one and, arguably, the report has not correctly reflected this reality. There are references in the report to local property tax being the only source of locally generated income that can be used for local priorities. This is not correct.Commercial rates, goods and services and local property tax income are all used to fund local authority services, including planning, public lighting, provision of fire services and libraries. The elected members have, for the most part, discretion to determine the level of income from goods and services. The adoption of a balanced budget is probably the single most important duty that the elected members are called upon to carry out each year. To achieve that balance, the members must make informed and necessary choices to balance the level of service provision having regard to both the needs and resources available.