Mr. John A. Moran:

I am sorry, I missed the original questions. Just to follow up on this concern about the scale of Limerick, we need to also remember the Southern Regional Assembly role and the regional spatial and economic strategies, RSES, document. One of the things I was disappointed to see was what seems to be another climbdown, in that the mayor was suggested, throughout 2019, as being a member of the Southern Regional Assembly. This would by definition involve the voice of the mayor in the discussions about how Limerick would interface with County Clare in the larger metropolitan area and indeed with County Tipperary and beyond. I strongly recommend that becomes a natural thing because, in a sense, what Limerick voted for back in to 2019 was to allow the people to pick who would represent them and not to allow this sort of lockstep political party, if the committee will forgive me, deciding amongst itself who was going to get these roles. The mayor is a natural person to put on the RSES. That is most important because what I hope is that if this works well it work well in other cities. We would then see the mayors of Cork and Waterford sitting at the right level, that is the regional assembly level, to drive forward all the interests of the broader regions.