Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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133. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if supports will be provided to county councils to enable them to provide for webcasting of local authority meetings in circumstances in which such facilities do not exist in order to allow persons to view important proceedings on budgetary, planning, zoning and development plan matters to ensure full transparency in same. [47167/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The local government sector receives funding from a number of different sources, including central Government. It is a matter for each elected Council to decide its own spending priorities in the context of the annual budgetary process, having regard to both locally identified needs and available resources.

Section 45(5) of the Local Government Act 2001 states that a local authority may, by standing orders, regulate the right of members of the public and members of the media to be present at meetings. This includes the making of rules in relation to recording or relaying the proceedings as they take place or at a later stage.

It is therefore a matter for the elected members of each local authority to decide in the first instance to webcast local authority meetings and then to allocate sufficient funding from their annual budget for the provision of such facilities.

My Department, however, recognises the potential in the use of technology to strengthen local democracy, leadership and governance. At its meeting of 27 September 2018, the Government approved the policy paper "Local Authority Leadership, Governance and Administration", prepared as part of the response to the Programme for Partnership Government commitment to report to Government and the Oireachtas on potential measures to boost local government leadership and accountability, which identifies that action in the area of e-Democracy and e-Governance warrants consideration. This policy paper has been forwarded to the Joint Oireachtas Committee for Housing, Planning and Local Government for its consideration.