Senator John McGahon - speech from 14 Feb 2023
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Transcript
Leader, today I would like to ask for a debate on local government and how it is structured here. We are now approaching the 10 year anniversary of since when town councils were abolished, and I say that coming from a county of Louth, where it is two of the biggest towns in Ireland, in Dundalk and Drogheda, and I think we should absolutely consider the re-establishment of some town councils. I am not asking for every village in every town that ever had a town council to re-establish one. I think it would be sufficient to ask for some sort of a study to be carried out where towns over a certain population should certainly have a town council. some form of a town council. Like Dundalk, for example, is 40,000 people. Drogheda is 41,000 people. Both of those are set to expand under Project 2040 by 40,000 each. We want to have 70,000 to 80,000 people living in these two towns in the next 20 years. So I think it is definitely something that should be considered. There is nothing wrong with at least having a look at it again. And I say it also because back then when you would have had town councils, you obviously had a town clerk. I think that can be replaced with a specific director of services for large provincial towns. And I do that because of the huge issues that are there in provincial towns that I think are just being missed out because they are in with municipal districts at the same time. I think it was a mistake to abolish them nine years ago when it did happen. And I think we should consider having the debate on it. I am certainly not coming into this House saying, like, let's reintroduce them tomorrow. There is nothing to fear from a debate about it. And I think some sort of an analysis should be carried out by the Department of Local Government and the Department of Housing to see if it was the right decision ten years ago. And to see that if there is any space for it to happen and be reoccurred in situations where you have very, very large populations in substantial provincial towns like the town of Dundalk and Drogheda and County Louth. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. There you go. Thank you.