Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)

Local government is the closest form of government to the people. Its finger is on the pulse of what people need. The Minister of State is aware it is under-resourced, underappreciated and overburdened. He should be aware of the previous report that stated that Ireland has one of the most centralised governments in Europe. It is time to reverse the dominance of central government over local government and the dominance of chief executives over councillors. Councillors are crying out for more powers and councils are crying out for more devolved powers.

Councillors should be entitled to decent pensions. The maximum gratuity needs to be increased from 20 years to 30 years, and Departments are micromanaging from Dublin.

This House voted in the past to reduce the powers of councillors. Much to the disbelief and surprise of many of us, it voted against letting us go on JPCs, ETBs and university panels. We need to preserve and increase autonomy for councillors in the local authority system.

Remuneration for councillors needs to be looked at again. The Moorhead report, which I read, does not consider that a councillor’s job is a full-time job. It is a full-time job. It is 24-7, weekends, Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. It is all days.

There needs to be a mechanism for local authorities to be able to raise revenue powers locally. A good functioning democracy is a good functioning local authority.

The Minister of State mentioned the area committee. What are these, and will they be elected? Chief executives are very powerful in councils and they are not elected. Would this be another group of unelected people? I wish to get clarity on that question.