Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----and at a time when the town council was recording annual surplus returns when, in stark contrast, our county council was mired in debt.

I take immense pride in walking down the streets of my hometown with my three young children, knowing that the town in which they are growing up, and indeed in which the Minister of State, Deputy English's children are growing up, is a much better town in terms of facilities for them than the one in which I grew up. That is, and must be, the litmus test as to whether a form of government is successful - have we improved the lives of the people we serve? If we can say that we have made tangible differences, then it has been a success.

Considering the example which I have given, and which can be replicated in so many towns across Ireland - I have colleagues here from Sligo, Naas, Cavan and Kilkenny - one wonders about the motivation to abolish them in the first instance. Over the next 20 years, our towns will grow larger and the need to have dedicated budgets, development plans and representation for them will be all the more critical so that the facilities which are lacking in so many areas, and which get covered as commuter stories in the newspaper and on television, actually get delivered.

We want to see the town council system back in a strengthened fashion. There is no reason that we cannot have the strong local government seen in places like France, Italy and Scandinavia. People have said to me that we are over represented in this country. They should look at the statistics. We are not. In France, the ratio of public representatives to people is 1:118. In Denmark, which is a similar size to this country, it is 1:1,100. In Ireland, it is 1:2,800. It is the highest ratio in the EU. The UK is just behind us at 1:2,600.

Any public representative worth his or her salt will know from speaking to the people living in the large housing estates of more than 300 houses - both those currently there and those that will be built in the future - that we need to have the proper support and infrastructure for them, from the very basic items to bigger things such as swimming pools and playing pitches. If a large town is part of a much wider and larger municipal district, its ability to acquire that funding is considerably diminished. In some cases there are municipal districts which are the size of Dáil constituencies. The Kells electoral area in Meath is a fine example. It is not feasible for our local public representatives to offer proper representation. We do not want to see the large towns, in which people are living, starved of funding in a system that is already starved of funding and which was under-resourced in the first place.

This Bill is the first step in putting a town council system back in place which will be fit for purpose, so that the people living in the urban centres of this country, whether it be Kilkenny, Drogheda, Athlone or Navan, will get the special focus that can only be delivered through the reintroduction of our town councils. I hope that the Government, and indeed all parties in the House, will support the Bill and seek not to obstruct, but to actually help people in the urban Ireland which the Government is creating through the national planning framework. Let use make sure that these towns we are building have resources and supports that are fit for the purpose of helping our people.

See this speech in context