SEANAD REPORT: The Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Cullen, accused Fine Gael of engaging in opportunism over the Local Government Bill.
Launching the second stage debate on the Bill, he criticised an amendment by the main opposition party urging that the Bill be not given a second reading on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, that it deprived the people of an opportunity to vote in directly elected mayors, and that it made no provision to further devolve powers to locally elected councils.
Mr Cullen said that the Fine Gael stance was a bewildering attempt to move in opposite directions simultaneously - to oppose the ending of the dual mandate, having strongly supported its ending in line with Fine Gael policy on the last occasion on which such legislation was before the House.
Mr Jim Bannon (FG) said that the ending of the combined local authority and Seanad membership was nothing short of choking off the oxygen supply from local areas.
Questioning whether the Bill was constitutionally sound he asked if the Government was prepared to publish the Attorney General's opinion on it, or would perhaps the grey areas that the AG had most likely found strengthened the Bill's opponents "by taking democracy out of the hands of the people of Ireland, the Government is denying them their democratic right to decide their local representative. Under these proposals, experienced people will be forced to leave local government. I can assure the Minister that the offer of a financial sweetener, which is tantamount to a dubious pay-off is no incentive to councillors to give up their unpaid work for their local areas."