An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-03
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Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel

I join Senator Costello in congratulating South Dublin County Council on being selected as the LAMA local authority of the year. It is richly deserved. I know Colm Ward, too, and he does an exceptional job.
That leads me to focus on the local democracy task force. Its report is complete. It has been signed off and is no longer with the task force. It is not the 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 cannot speculate about the final report or its recommendations. However, I go back to when the Seanad published, under the Cathaoirleach's leadership, a Seanad Public Consultation Committee report on local government. We always intended to revisit it and we should.
While we have no veto on this report, it is important that we as Senators work closely with local government and it would be right and proper that we at some point engage with the Minister and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage about it. We can have all the reports in the world - and there are many of them - but unless we implement and help to push along the key recommendations, they will go nowhere. I said earlier during a Commencement matter on the challenges around the Mayor of Limerick - a Mayor who received first preferences in excess of 27% of the vote; what an outstanding vote - that there will always be challenges, particularly when we are rolling out mayors. I welcome that the Tánaiste has given more momentum to a task force for Cork. There is a task force under way in Dublin. However, if we are to move from local administration to local government, there is a lot more work to do.
I commend the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, the Local Authorities Members Association, LAMA, the County and City Management Association, CCMA, and the local government audit organisation, the National Oversight and Audit Commission, NOAC, on the work they have done. It is important we now proceed. I look forward, in due course when the Minister has discussed the report in his Department and brought it to the Cabinet, to having time to discuss it too and to continue to mentor reform of local government as we committed to do in the Seanad Public Consultation Committee for local government and local democracy.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-03