Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will raise two issues. One relates to strengthening our local democracy. It is said that local government is the beating heart of our democracy. That is very true. We have just shy of 1,000 sitting county councillors in this country. There is less than a page in the programme for Government, which I have in front of me here, regarding strengthening our local democracy. One of the key aspects of political reform and strengthening local democracy is that the Government was to establish a task force on local democracy and local government. That arises from an initiative of the Cathaoirleach, who led the Seanad committee meetings on local democracy and political reform. We had very extensive engagement on that. From my contacts in the Department, I understand the terms of reference for that task force are being finalised. It is important we look at that given it was discussed by a Seanad committee. We should afford some time to go through the highlights of the recommendations. We should also have some influence on the terms of reference. After all, councillors are the electorate for the majority of Senators. We are connected. Many of us are former local councillors ourselves. We should demonstrate our absolute commitment. I know some of the representative bodies of councillors were here to meet some of our Senators today. I ask that we make time in our schedule to recap the key highlights of that report and to feed into the task force's terms of reference. I ask that the Leader use his good offices to find out the status of that task force and its proposed make-up.

I again ask for a debate on the Housing Commission. We have not had a debate on the Housing Commission, which made very extensive recommendations. I raised the issue of tenants' rights as a Commencement matter today. The other day, the Government announced thousands of inspections for the private sector. There was no mention of who was to inspect local authority houses, the social housing in this country. All tenants should have the same rights to redress and the same access to the Residential Tenancies Board, whether they are in the public sector or private sector. There should be rental tenancy agreements in place for everyone. We should not differentiate. The Minister came to the House today and told us there is no proposal for local authority inspections but that the Department might consider it. I am yet again calling for that. I will finish on this. If anyone saw the news on RTÉ last night, they will have seen Samantha Libreri reporting on the appalling conditions in a council house in north County Dublin. There was an infestation of rats, wires hanging out and lights hanging off the walls. The tenant made a very strong case. She could not get any redress and that is simply not good enough.I want that reviewed again. More important, however, is the strong recommendation in the report of the Housing Commission that public tenants of our 31 local authorities be included in the remit of the Residential Tenancies Board. There is a good case for that and I would like to elaborate on that recommendation when the House has a debate, if the Leader organises one.