Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)

If the Labour Party amendment to the Bill is not accepted, we will end up with the creation of a greater Dublin area transport council, chaired by the mayor. Five people will be appointed by the mayor and five by the Minister of Transport. The council will also include the cathaoirleach of the Mid-Eastern Regional Authority, which I believe has 12 members.

There will be also a regional development board, comprising the mayor, the deputy mayor, the chief executive of the regional authority, the cathaoirleach of each of the four Dublin local authorities, the manager of each of the four Dublin local authorities, not less than two people from each of the following, who, in the opinion of the mayor, represent business or economic development interests; local enterprise, education or community development interests; development agencies interests; trade union interests; environment interests; and arts and culture interests, up to a maximum of 19 people. Some other sub-committees will arise from the legislation.

There also will be a Dublin regional authority, comprising the mayor, five members from Dublin City Council, five members from Fingal County Council, two members from South Dublin County Council and two members from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, the cathaoirleach of each of those councils and, I believe, 16 members also. One does not need to be a genius to understand that a plethora of committees will be created. Since I got a copy of the Bill, I have read it from front to back. I have it dog-eared, foot-noted and everything else, but I cannot figure out what these committees will do in terms of legislation and what new powers they will have. As I said at the outset we need a Bill that is fit for purpose and this Bill certainly is not.

When the legislation is implemented Dublin will have 5.5 mayors because the new mayor will have a deputy mayor who will initially be appointed by the Minister and subsequently by the mayor with the Minister's approval. We will have 47 new positions within three new committees and none of us knows what they will be doing in legislation or what their legal standing will be. Others may have different views on the reform of local government. I believe powers should be devolved downwards and not upwards. However, the Minister is introducing some kind of evolved structure, which has evolved out of his own head, in between his Department and the local authorities, which will not work.

On every occasion we have discussed the proposed Dublin mayor during Question Time, the Minister has said the White Paper on local government reform would be published at the same time as he published this Bill, but that has not happened. That has not happened. Every time the Minister was asked during Question Time about this by either the Labour Party or Fine Gael, he said both Bills would be published concurrently and we would see the legislation on the mayoralty and the White Paper on local government. However, we are still waiting for the White Paper.

The Minister has arrived at the destination, which is the mayoralty of Dublin, without laying out the roadmap, which is the White Paper. That is a dangerous journey to make. It is dangerous to decide this is where he is going without deciding how to get there. We have, therefore, the Minister's defined position without knowing the structure the lord mayor will operate under in the future. If this was a business, this would be a bad contract. We are buying a pig in a poke by facilitating the Minister to put an office in place without outlining the structure underpinning it in the context of local government. This will make for bad legislation if Opposition spokespersons, regardless of our views on it, have to table amendments without knowing the super structure under which the office will operate. We have the final destination but we do not have the roadmap to get there and the Minister has still to provide us with it.

It is interesting that Fianna Fáil has not won at the local government elections since the 1980s. Its total national representation has been in decline since the 1980s.

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