Pat Casey (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome everybody and thank them for their statements. I also welcome the wide and diverse groupings we have had throughout the consultation process - today is our last such consultation - which has been very interesting. I agree with what the rapporteur said about the library and research document. It would be no harm, when that is finalised, that it be sent to all the contributors. It is a fascinating read that might explain many of the matters we need to address.

It comes down to three key issues: centralisation of powers, reserved functions versus executive functions and the financing of local authorities. These are the three key principles that need to be addressed when we discuss the future of local democracy. It is great to see members of the CCMA here to get their observations on that. The general observation of putting people first is quite the opposite to what has been presented by the witnesses. Maybe they will expand on that a little as regards policymaking.

Policymaking has been completely removed from local democracy and is wholly centralised at this stage. County development plans started with the national planning framework, NPF, and the regional authorities were then given the decision to assign key towns in each county. They decided population growth. Then there was the introduction of the Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR, which oversees and ensures the NPF was implemented to the letter of the law. This means there is no flexibility as regards the policymaking in the county development plan, which is the one reserved function each local authority has. Mention climate change, wind strategy or any other policy and you are automatically referred back to national policy and not local policy. From a policy point of view, Putting People First did not restore policymaking to local democracy.

As for local democracy itself, the abolition of town councils removed the feeding ground for introducing people to politics. We need to make it easier for people to get involved in local democracy. We need to review the town councils and municipal districts because there may be something we can address there to get more people involved in local democracy.

On the role of women in local democracy, it is at the grassroots that we must get women involved first. Sometimes I wonder whether the gender quota should have been applied first at local level rather than national level. Mr. Sheehan stated there was a 21% increase in candidates but the return was less than 17%. That is disappointing. Something mentioned by Ms Keane hit home with me. My wife ran in the local elections and she asked me at one stage whether she had to put our home address on the form. At that stage, we were living right beside Newtownmountkennedy, where there was a sensitive issue at the time. That was the only question she asked me.

On financing, Ms Murrell said local government is now getting funding from 30 Departments and State agencies. It is very hard to budget what a council is going to get annually if it is hoping for money from 30 different bodies.

As my time is up, I will return to the three key questions. The centralisation of powers must be looked at. How can we restore them to local government? How do we give more reserved functions and take the executive functions back? How do we finance our local authorities? If we do not finance them, they cannot do anything. They need finance in place so they can make decisions.