An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-09
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Frances Black (IND), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I want to speak about my Private Member's Bill that will be before the House tomorrow evening, the Local Government (Support for Elected Members) Bill 2024. Colleagues should know that this Bill seeks to address long-standing and well documented challenges facing local democracy in Ireland. I hosted a briefing on this recently but not many people turned up, which was disappointing. This legislation is rooted in a simple but fundamental principle. As we all know, our local authorities cannot function effectively unless the people elected to lead them are properly supported, equipped and empowered to fulfil their roles. Local government is the tier of democracy closest to our communities and councillors are always the first point of contact for citizens. They are the advocates for local need, the monitors of service delivery and the democratic guardians of local plans, budgets and policies. Successive reports from the Council of Europe, the Seanad Public Consultation Committee, academic research conducted by Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, and Maynooth University and the Local Democracy Taskforce have highlighted the growing pressures and expectations placed on councillors, alongside widening gaps in support structures, training and resources. The intention of this Bill is not to upend existing systems or reopen debates about the balance between local and national responsibilities. Rather, it is to ensure that elected members are provided with the professional supports, protections and working conditions required to carry out the increasingly complex statutory and representative duties expected of them. These duties now span housing policy, planning oversight, community development, climate action, local enterprise, transport and much more but without adequate training, administrative support and clarity around entitlements, we risk undermining the very people responsible for shaping and scrutinising decisions that affect every household in this State. The Bill is designed to be constructive. It compliments rather than duplicates the work of the Local Democracy Taskforce and seeks to give legislative effect to many of the concerns raised across all 31 local authorities. I look forward to working constructively with colleagues across the Seanad. I hope this Bill will be supported by the Department, as well as by local government representatives. I thank the AILG and Local Authorities Members Association for attending the briefing.
I also want to very quickly ask the Leader to invite the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport to come to the House to provide an update on the supports being provided to artists who are being evicted from the Ormond Art Studios and The Complex in Dublin. This is an issue that we should debate in the House.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-09