Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for bringing the legislation before the committee. I also thank him and the Ministers for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and Public Expenditure and Reform because they have all been most responsive to my representations and those made to them by other Senators on behalf of local authority members. I am very encouraged to hear that the Moorhead report will finally be signed off by Cabinet today. I hope that is the case because it is long overdue. That is good news. It is an important signal to send to our local authority members. They are invaluable to their communities and to our democracy. They are on the coal face of our democratic process. They are the go-to people in their local communities, streets, villages and towns. Right throughout the pandemic they have been fronting Government response and local authority response. The efforts they have put in and the supports they have provided for their communities could never be really properly rewarded in a monetary sense. However, it is important that the Government recognises their contribution and values it. Signing off on and implementing the Moorhead report should go a long way to beginning to do that.

I welcome this pre-legislative scrutiny process. I am acutely aware that the vote in Limerick was very tight. At the time, I was most disappointed that a plebiscite was not held in Dublin. I spent a good number of years living in New York city. Over the period of a decade or so, I got to see upfront how impactful a directly elected mayor can be in a city of almost 10 million people, comprising five boroughs and with only 51 councillors. A directly elected mayor can have an enormous impact, both in supporting communities and the economy and championing the city and the county. I am really disposed to this concept, but I am also acutely aware that our local authority members' powers have been greatly eroded in recent times. If this is to be a success, not just for Limerick but also for our democracy and our country, it must be of incremental value to our democratic process. It is not enough for it just to amount to the creation of a new office and role. It must be demonstrated to the people of Limerick and to the rest of the country that there is an incremental value in it.

One of the concerns that has been expressed to me is that it is a precursor to the further erosion of local authority members' powers and that it will lead to a reduction in the number of local authority members in Limerick city and county. I would like the Minister of State to address that issue. The point was made to me that under the New York model, where there are five boroughs and approximately 8 million people, there are only 51 councillors and one mayor. In comparison, in Limerick city and county, with a population of in the region of 94,000, there are 41 councillors. That is a concern. As I said at the outset, the local authority members who are elected are the representatives of the people of Limerick city and county. They are the expression of the democratic will. I ask the Minister of State to address that point directly.

I have listened to the Minister of State and I believe he has very sincere intentions to take the potential of this legislation to enhance the democratic process to strengthen local democracy in Limerick and to create a model that can be replicated in other parts of the country. However, as a committee, we also need to engage directly with the currently elected local representatives of Limerick city and county in the context of our pre-legislative scrutiny process. We should hear from them and engage with them. It sounds to me that we have a bit of leeway in terms of the timeline. Therefore, I think that we, as a committee, need to engage directly with the elected members. We should invite them to participate in this process.