Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the chief executives for coming to the meeting. One thing that keeps coming through is the need for the directly elected mayor to have the power to raise revenues. That is in the citizens' assembly's recommendations report. We are not tasked with going back over the conclusions to which the citizens' assembly came but rather asking how they can be implemented. When I look at the citizens' assembly report and see the breadth of powers it has recommended are given to a mayor, I think it is unfair to ask one person to do that. Large Departments are in charge of all of these areas. I am interested, in particular, in the power that chief executives currently have and think could be realistically devolved in a relatively short time to a directly elected mayor. How would that be done, if they were willing? I also ask Councillor Feeney for her view from a regional level and from her experience as a councillor. If she were to pick one particular area, how could that power be devolved easily to a directly elected mayor? I worry at the example of Irish Water, for example, which took so long to bed in and to be transferred over to local authorities. There are other areas, such as street cleaning. Transport is a key area, particularly in Dublin. Integration of the transport networks across the four local authorities is important.