Mr. John A. Moran:

This is about delegating responsibility as much as possible to a democratic local level. We must remember that 15,000 or 20,000 social and affordable houses are to be built in Limerick in the next ten or 15 years. That should be done by the local authority. No one should have to go to Dublin to try to get funding to build a swimming pool, museum, park or new school. This is an opportunity to get things fixed and to properly run pilot schemes in cities with delegated authority across all the functions.

I would add the health sector to what Professor Ó Broin said. Limerick has a health structure that aligns closely with the county budget. The report to which Ms Ryan referred gives the answer to a lot of the other questions. The Irish Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, is supposed to provide the money to invest in infrastructure across Ireland. The mayor should be a key driver of how that money is spent in Limerick. He or she should not have influence over how all of it is spent, but the mayor should have an influence over the portion that is going to be spent in Limerick. That should include enterprise support and business support. The plans for what should happen in Limerick will sometimes be different to what should happen in other parts of the country because local needs are different. We saw during the pandemic that a one-size-fits-all approach does not necessarily work well.