Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2025-11-12 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central -----municipal districts. That is an issue that has to be factored into whatever we do. I do favour at least establishing a pilot programme whereby we look at certain areas of population of a certain scale where we could reintroduce councils. We talk about connection to people and we talk about democracy. The town councils were that connection. I was in some places recently where flooding had taken place. The absence of a town council and a basic administrative capacity was sorely felt over the past number of years in terms of resources being readily available in a given town if flooding occurred. More importantly, these councils are a way of bringing people into politics at a particular level. People can graduate to county councils or the Dáil subsequently. It is about civic participation in society and in our communities. I could never understand the negativity in some quarters towards councils. I was a bit frustrated at the decision by my good colleague - and I have great respect for him - former Deputy and Minister Brendan Howlin. As soon as he left the Department, he had regrets about the decision. That said, it is important that he has said that he thinks it was not a great idea. The latter is important because he is somebody who has been through both sides of it. The task force will be reporting in the first quarter of next year. There has been stakeholder consultation. I take the Deputy’s point about public consultation. We might ask the task force to have a look at that. It is examining structures, functions and the financing of local government. I take on board the Deputy's bona fides in the context of what he is saying. The report will come back to us and we will take it from there. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-11-12/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:05+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-11-12