Out Of The Mouths Of Ministers…

Minister Simpson has been reported to have said that every word he says or writes on local government reform is carefully checked and approved by the State Solicitor's Office before it is released or said by him. That being so, we can take it that the words attributed to him in the latest Local Government Update have the SSO stamp of approval - notwithstanding that they appear to admit some of the claims in the legal action currently before the Supreme Court.

He is reported as saying: "Given the overlapping and competing proposals, the Board's role has been to assess each proposal on its merits…". With 'competing and overlapping' proposals, it is a logical impossibility for the Board to assess each proposal individually without reference to other proposals that 'compete' or 'overlap' with it.

In other words, it cannot assess each proposal individually - and yet the Board has no power to combine inquiries into multiple proposals. This provision is not simply absent from the Local Government Act, 1995, but the Government thought it necessary to try to give the Board that power via the unsuccessful Local Government Amendment Bill, 2013, which has singularly failed to pass the Parliament. In doing so, of course, the Government effectively admitted that the Board does not have that power currently.

Simpson is also reported as saying that: "…the inquiries represented the most significant and complex task ever undertaken by the Board". This is self-evidently true, by the proverbial country mile (no apologies for not metricating), something that should give the Minister cause to reflect on the fact that it was never the intention of the Parliament, in setting up the Board, that it should undertake such a complex task.