Letters

Bill on unelected substitute councillors – rushed law is bad law

Bill may be unconstitutional

Tue Dec 20 2022 - 00:14

Sir, – A total of 41 Bills were enacted by the Oireachtas between January 1st and December 10th, 2022.

A total of 10 Bills were passed by the Oireachtas between December 13th and December 16th. Motions for early signature by the President of several of the Bills were also passed by both the Dáil and Seanad.

In the case of three of the 10 Bills, the Government allocated an hour for each Bill to be debated in the Seanad. This meant that all stages of the Bills had to be taken at once within the hour allocated.

One of those three Bills – the Local Government (Maternity Protection and other Measures for Members of Local Authorities) Bill – introduces a new type of temporary unelected substitute councillor. This new type of transient councillor was simply nodded through after a few speeches in the Dáil and Seanad that largely were used by TDs and Senators to compliment the Minister of State for Local Government Peter Burke for his work on the legislation. There was no proper scrutiny by the Dáil and Seanad of what temporary unelected substitute councillors might mean for local democracy. The two stages of Bills that allow for scrutiny by TDs and Senators section by section, ie committee and report stages, were passed without debate in both Houses of our parliament.

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Speeches by TDs and Senators about the Bill indicate that there was a widespread misapprehension that temporary unelected substitute councillors were being introduced for the purposes of maternity leave. However, the legislation that was agreed by TDs and Senators goes much further than that. A temporary substitute councillor can be co-opted for any councillor who takes a temporary absence “in good faith” for any reason whatsoever. The amount of time a councillor can be on uninterrupted absence can be for any amount of time from a month to 18 months. A temporary substitute can be in place for the duration of the absence for up to 18 months at a time. There is no limit to the amount of times a councillor can avail of the option of having a temporary substitute councillor take over from them at council meetings.

This means that any one councillor could have multiple absences and multiple substitutes during their term. If the temporary substitute councillor resigns prematurely, then a new temporary substitute can be co-opted in their place.

This means that during the one period of temporary absence taken by a councillor, there could be consecutive temporary councillors replacing them at meetings.

The introduction of temporary unelected substitute councillors is a profound change to our local democracy. In 1999 the people at a referendum decided to enshrine local elections in the Constitution under Article 28A. Article 28A gives the right to voters to choose their local councillors at local elections. Article 28A also provides for only two ways a seat on a council can be filled – either by direct election or in the event of a casual vacancy.

The Bill that was passed last week by TDs and Senators explicitly states that the circumstances in which temporary substitute councillors can be co-opted are not casual vacancies. Both the councillor who is being substituted and their substitute will be councillors at the same time.

On the face of it, this appears to be in conflict with Article 28A.

The introduction of temporary unelected substitute councillors will seriously undermine the right of voters to choose their representatives on local councils. The truism that rushed law is bad law comes to mind. – Yours, etc,

Cllr JOANNA TUFFY,

(Labour),

Lucan,

Co Dublin.