Electoral Commission
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-15
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John Cummins (FG), Waterford

As Minister of State with responsibility for local government, I can assure the Senator that extensive work has been undertaken by officials in the Department since the task force presented its recommendations to the Minister, Deputy Browne, and me. As she can imagine, it is a very detailed report, for all of the reasons I set out in my initial response. As a result, we have to carefully examine all of those recommendations and put an effective implementation plan in place.
The boundary review element requires a Government decision, which is part of the local democracy task force report. That is being worked on, as I said. I assure the Senator that the Minister and I are determined to ensure that local democracy is strengthened, that the roles and responsibilities of councillors are enhanced and that they are able to effectively hold the Executive to account within the local authority system. That is the overall premise of the local democracy task force and the recommendations that have come out of it.
Communities receive about 1,000 services from local government and I am committed to ensuring that this next generation of reform will put local government in good stead, but we need to get it right. We need to consider the recommendations and it will need to go to the Government for a decision on it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:16+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-15