Senator John McGahon- speech from 11 May 2022

Thank you very much, Lasky Eireann. Minister, I suppose the point that I want to come at is the concept of local government as we know it today. You know, when I was five years in a local authority in Louth County Council, and I think the actual format that it is in currently is fundamentally flawed. And the reason why it's fundamentally flawed and the format that it has is, is that the people who are supposed to hold a chief executive and director of services to account are technically the county councillors. They are the people who are supposed to hold them in account to make sure that things are happening the way they should. But at the same time, and let's just be blunt about it and call a spade a spade here, if I'm a county councillor who wants to go and try and achieve things that needs to be done within a county council, it's not going to advantage me to go out of my way to be trying to hammer a chief executive or a director of services week in, week out to make sure that they're doing the correct and proper job. So that's why the system is flawed. The people that are being, the people, the county councillors who are supposed to hold the executive to account, need the executive on the one hand to be able to progress stuff through a local authority, and that's why it's flawed in the first instance. And that's why I've been a firm believer that I believe chief executives and director of services should be accountable to a higher body, namely the Oireachtas, that at some stage that they're called in once a year, whether it's into PAC or whether it's into the committee with local government to say, right, well, tell me why this county is consistently the lowest collector of rates in the country. Tell me why this county consistently has the highest number of maintenance requests into a local authority. Tell me why this county isn't building enough affordable homes like we're asking you to, or why is there so many people on a housing transfer list and there's been no movement with it. They have to be accountable to someone at a higher level, and I think that's why the Oireachtas has a real place to play, because chief executives and director of services aren't accountable to anybody. They're not accountable to the public, they're technically accountable to county councillors, and that's why what I would say an overall reform of it, and I don't mean to be radical when I say this, but I think we should see directly elected mayors in all local authorities around the county. And the reason why I would think you have directly elected mayors, and it's not just for Dublin or Cork, you know, for places like I'm from, from Louth or over your own way, the reason why you would have that is because then you have an elected official who's running on a campaign pledge and promises of over four or five years that they want to introduce, whether it's more active travelways or greenways or that they want to rejuvenate town centres or stuff like this, and then the politician is then having to actually deliver on those issues that they've campaigned on. And then there's a driving force within local authorities as a figurehead of where it's a mayor moving forward. You see similar with local authorities in Britain, where you have political parties who are in control of councils, and then they'll allocate different portfolios to different councillors there, and there are councils that can really achieve things as well. So I just think the fundamental flaw in Ireland in terms of local authorities is just the current system. Now, it's so easy for me to come into this chamber and say the system is wrong and we need to fix it. Like, what I'm advocating for is taking a sledgehammer to local authority and breaking it into a thousand pieces and building a brand new system again. That's what I really think we need to be doing. And as Senator Burke has quite rightly said, that local authorities, and I've heard him saying this before, local authorities have been decimated at every really point over the last 30 or 40 years, where more powers have been taken away and taken away and taken away. And at the end of the day, councillors, I feel, are nothing more than just a rubber stamping approval for the executive. And if the executive don't like something that a county councillor is talking about or a proposal that they're trying to... I don't know why you're shaking your head, Councillor Fitzpatrick. I'm being honest about this. This is my experience as a local authority. This is my... Please, thank you. Yeah. This is my experience as a local authority council. In a smaller county council, that's not Dublin City Council or other councillors, which, with the finance that they have, are like the real... the majority of local authorities, compared to a local authority where I'm from in County Louth. So that's why it might go easier in bigger local authorities. But I'm giving you my experience of what happens here in County Louth, where then the executive would turn around and say, well, sure, we'll kick it into an SPC and we'll examine it there. And six months pass down the line and nothing comes along from it. So what I'm talking about is the actual fundamental change in local authorities. And there's lots of great things local authorities do, but they're totally and utterly inefficient. And that's my experience in my own county over the years. And like I said, if we really wanted to be radical about it, and it's not pie in the sky stuff, but if we really wanted to talk about it, let's do something different with it. And I think what Senator Burke said is a good idea where you take along and you pilot run it in another local authority to see if something like this is. But there has to be a key person with responsibility in any local authority that's publicly held to account. And if that was going to be a directly elected mayor, great. If it's going to be a chief executive, have them to be held directly to account by an Oireachtas committee, where they can be called in every year and they can be questioned on various issues about what may be going very well in their local authority or what may not be going very well. But one thing that I am very, very clear about is that there is no accountability in local government today. I really don't think there is. And I think that needs to change. And if we can start there, I think that would be a good process to move forward with. Thank you. Thank you.