Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses for contributing. Unlike any other legislation we deal with,, as Mr. Moran outlined, this comes with a democratic mandate that no other topic comes to us with, that is, the people of Limerick have decided on this issue. In some ways our views on it need to be part of that in order that we can reflect that democratic mandate. Many people, particularly at local government level, were engaged in their local elections during that period in 2019 and perhaps there was not the same awareness of what was happening outside of the three cities that were holding those plebiscites. Mr. Moran's contribution in particular was important because it communicated the promises that were made and the debate that perhaps those outside of Limerick at the time were not aware of. However, I would differ from him in one sense in that Dublin suffers from the dead hand of central government as much as any other city. Perhaps the repeated references to Dublin were inadvertent and he meant to say "central government" in those cases. Dublin will be impacted by this legislation as much as anywhere else because of the way in which Dublin will be governed. We will look back to this Bill when we make a decision on a directly elected mayor for Dublin. That is why we need to get it right. It would not be correct for us to have multiple systems of directly elected mayors in different cities across the island. That would lead to widespread confusion.

We have had a pre-legislative scrutiny session on the Bill and have asked quite detailed questions. I might repeat some of those and then allow members to come back in as much as they can. It is almost impossible to ask four people questions in four minutes and for all of them to have time to answer. Dr. O'Malley and Professor Ó Broin have spoken in the past about how unique this model is. It involves an executive, directly elected political figure, which we do not have in Ireland. In that case it brings two issues to the fore. The removal process is the opposite of being bogged down in legal challenges. It could be a perpetual political opportunity for those small groups in the chambers effectively to impeach constantly the mayor and then for the final decision to be made by the Minister, who ultimately will not decide to impeach the mayor. There is, therefore, almost an incentive for small groups with less of a mandate than the mayor himself to try to constantly impeach him. We need to watch out for that in the general scheme.

The second issue I have is that I am not certain about the role of the príomh comhairleoir. I understand why the position has been included, but the term "deputy mayor" is well understood internationally and by our communities and I am not sure why we are inventing the term "príomh comhairleoir". I understand it but it is a bit too clever for its own good and I think we should revert to the idea of a deputy mayor.

Finally, what if people have questions about the lack of reform of local government? Limerick has had some reform in the merging of the two administrative areas, but if this system were to be layered on top of Dublin or another city without reforming local government, there would be problems. The question is whether we have missed an opportunity to reform local government here as well.

We have very little time. I will leave the minute and a half open for anybody who wishes to come in.