Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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41. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to re-establish town councils; and when he expects town councils to be re-established. [18558/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The decision to replace town authorities with a new model of municipal governance under the Local Government Reform Act 2014 was designed primarily to strengthen local government within counties and to address widely acknowledged and long-standing weaknesses and anomalies in the previous system, including divided administration between town and county authorities, for example, in relation to matters such as planning, rating and charges.

Municipal districts now cover the entire territory of each county, reflecting European norms, removing outdated boundaries and ending the anomaly of small towns having municipal status and dual representation, while some larger centres and rural areas lacked any sub-county governance. As well as creating a more rational and comprehensive structural arrangement, the new system enables more effective and community-focused decision making and implementation. Under the new arrangements, there is full integration of local authority resources across each county and elimination of duplication both in administrative and electoral terms.

In 2015, which was the first full year of the revised local government structures, a broadly based Advisory Group was convened to carry out a review of their operation, in conjunction with a Local Government Forum for engagement with the Association of Irish Local Government. Feedback from these deliberations and the results of surveys of local authority members and chief executives, indicate that the revised structures are generally operating well but will need more time to bed down fully. The results of this operational review will provide a key input to the consideration of issues in the preparation of a report for Government and the Oireachtas by mid-2017, pursuant to the Programme for a Partnership Government, on potential measures to boost local government leadership and accountability and to ensure that local government funding, structures and responsibilities strengthen local democracy, including the issue of town or borough council status. Initial scoping work in relation to the development of proposals to address the requirements in the Programme for a Partnership Governmentis being undertaken in my Department.