Councillors to give input to Department of Health consultation with party response

At September’s Environmental Services Committee meeting, members were informed that the Department of Health (DoH) had launched a consultation on potential new policy proposals and were presented with a draft council response, collated from senior Environmental Health Officers.

However, DUP Alderman John McAuley proposed deferring the response until a full council meeting on Tuesday, October 1, so it could be reviewed by all elected members.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Ald McAuley proposed that individual parties send their own responses instead, as he had been contacted by constituents with “serious concerns” about the bill.

“I don’t think there’s any point in trying to get a consensus to a document of this detail within this chamber, so I propose that we don’t [give] a corporate response and that it’s left to each individual or party to put their response forward,” said Ald McAuley.

“If people do accept what has been drawn up by the council, the hard work’s done for you and you can just use that response feel free, that’s entirely up to each individual.”

Alliance Councillor Lee Kane agreed and said the response request “raised a lot of questions about the role of councils as statutory bodies responding to public consultations”.

He concluded: “Given the diversity of political opinion within this chamber and the fact that there is a policy response, I think it is up to the individual parties to respond as they see fit.”