PJ Murphy (Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for coming in to discuss this matter. As somebody who served five and half years as a local councillor in Galway County Council before my election to the Seanad, I greatly welcome that the Government will convene this local democracy task force, which will bring forward proposals to Government to consider for the reform and strengthening of local government.

As the Minister of State outlined, there are a number of focus points outlined for this task force to make recommendations on. I will briefly discuss four of these points. First is increasing the range of reserved functions and consideration of devolving more powers to local authorities for services. Second is rebalancing power between elected councillors and executive officers to ensure elected officers have a right to be consulted on a greater range of discussions and the right to know of all other decisions in a timely manner.

Let us look at the issue of devolving more powers to local authorities for local services. We have had experience with Irish Water taking the responsibility for water services and wastewater services from the local authorities. There have been mixed experiences across the country on that. There was a huge amount of local knowledge within the local authorities on both the water network and wastewater provision. I feel that taking from local authorities and giving to it to national authorities like that is a reprehensible move in many cases.

When it comes to the reserved and executive functions, there is a huge amount of frustration on the part of locally elected councillors with the grey area in between. There is a set number of reserved functions laid out that councillors decide on, and there is a set number of executive functions the executive decides on. In many cases, however, the executive treats everything that is a grey area as an executive function, and councillors feel excluded from the decision-making process in those grey areas. There has to be greater clarity provided on what exactly is a reserved function, what exactly is an executive function, and for those things that are neither, what exactly is the function of both the elected representatives and the executive in that decision-making process.

Third, I wish to look at increasing the accountability of the chief executive and directors of services to councillors for executive decisions. This is often a source of great frustration for councillors and locally elected representatives.Councillors feel they take the hit from the public locally if things do not work out as a result of decisions made by the executive. There are sometimes poorly made and ill-judged decisions that councillors had no hand, act or part in making, but they take the rap on the knuckles from the public on a day-to-day basis. We need a standardised system whereby the chief executive and the directors of services are answerable to elected representatives through a pre-established process. As it stands, many councillors feel they do not have that voice or ability to hold the chief executive and directors to account.

Another issue is the need to strengthen the framework and powers of municipal districts and area committees. During my five and a half years on Galway County Council, it worked very well and very efficiently in terms of the operation of municipal districts. There is a local knowledge of everything that is discussed within the municipal districts. Galway is a huge county, with a two-hour drive from Clifden to Portumna. Councillors simply do not have knowledge of issues happening two hours away from them. Those issues can be discussed efficiently, and decisions on them made efficiently, at municipal district level. However, all those decisions made at municipal district level are only recommendations and must go through to plenary to be discussed. Consideration should be given to installing powers to make binding decisions at that level.

The lump-sum payments to councillors on retirement or the loss of their seat are not made until the retired councillor reaches 50 years of age. If a councillor is first elected at 20, holds that seat for ten years and retires at 30, he or she must wait another 20 years until the lump-sum payment is made. During those 20 years, the payment is not benchmarked and is not earning interest. It devalues on an annual basis through inflation. This would not be tolerated in any other sector. It is an issue we really must examine.