Bring back town councils
NEW legislation to re-introduce town councils of nine members for every town with a population of 5,000 inhabitants or more, and councils of 15 members where the town population exceeds 25,000 was introduced in the Dáil by Labour leader Brendan Howlin.
The restoration of town government is to be done on a cost-neutral basis using the existing local government resources, simply moving the personnel that was taken from the town councils back to them, he said.
‘Some 80 town councils were abolished, which was a mistake,’ he said.
Town councils were replaced by 137 municipal district councils which were essentially sub-committees of the county council, he said.
‘Let us not pretend they were anything else. They are sub-committees of the county council and are seen as such.
‘They were also replaced by public participation networks, which were meant to involve local community groups and other civic society actors in discussing local concerns.
‘That was an extension of a proposal that I made many years ago when I was in the Department of the Environment and published a document called Better Local Government.’
‘It is fair to say that five years later, this policy has not delivered an ideal system of local government,’ he added.
‘Municipal district councils have not delivered as a replacement for town government. I say this as somebody who has been involved in the local government system since I was a town councillor. I have been Mayor of Wexford, a county councillor and Minister for the Environment and I have been involved in looking at the evolution of local government and at people attempting to alter local government.
‘One thing I have been clear on for a very long time is that for decades, the Department of the Environment was anxious to merge town government into a county structure.’
The Second Stage of the Bill was passed by 71 votes to 44.