Victor Boyhan says Local Government Task Force report is complete

I too would like to join with Senator Costell in congratulating South Dublin for being selected as the Lama Local Authority of the Year award. It's richly deserved, and yes, I know Colin Ward too, and he does an exceptional job. I suppose that leads me into the focus of the Local Government Task Force. We now know its work is complete. It has been signed off. It is no longer with the task force. It is not a draft report. It is the report, and it will be presented to the Minister tomorrow. Arrangements have been put in place for that to happen. I can't speculate about the final report or its recommendations, but I would like to go back to you, Curherlock. We established, or you established, under your leadership here as the Curherlock, collectively a group of us. We had the Shannon Public Consultation and Local Government report, and I think we always intended that we would revisit it again, and I believe we should. And I believe while we have no veto on this report, I think it's important that we work very closely as senators right across this House. With local government, and I think it's only right and proper that we, at some point, engage with the Minister and the Joint Oireachtas Commission on Housing, Planning, Local Government, and Heritage, in terms of it. Because you can have all the reports in the world, and there are many of them, but unless we implement and see and help to push along the key recommendations, it's going to go nowhere. I said earlier on, as part of a commencement matter here, in relation to Limerick and the challenges around the mayor of Limerick, with a mayor that received 20, 20, in excess of 26, 27% of the vote in first preferences. What an outstanding vote. There will always be challenges, particularly when we're rolling out mayors. I welcome the fact that the Tánaiste has given more momentum to a task force for Cork. There's a task force to be established, or is underway in Dublin. But I think if we have to move from local administration to local government, we have a lot more work to do. So I finish on this. I commend the ALG, LAMA, the CCMA, the Local Government Audit Organisation, and NOAC, for the work they've done. I think it's important that we now proceed, and I look forward to, in due course, when the Minister has discussed it within his own department and brought a report to Cabinet, that we would have time to discuss it too, and continue to mentor reform of local government, as we commit to do in the Shannon Committee on Public Consultation for Local Government and Local Democracy. Thank you.