Mr. John A. Moran:

The Senator is right, I should be saying "he or she". In my report, I referred to "the mayor".

The mayor gets the programme for office and there is a decision to implement it. The public thinks it will be implemented but the mayor could be left with no human resources function. That person has an executive function but does not control human resources or the distribution of resources within the local authority. That person does not even control the decisions about who the director general should be or whether the person in that role stays if underperforming. That is a gap in existing terms. There was a shift from the 2019 promise, when the mayor would have had a particularly political function as chair of the council, to a more executive function. That demands a rethink of the human resources governance issues from what was recommended.

On funding, I have always been an advocate of greater local property tax. To me, this relates to taxation without representation. We are giving Limerick more representation and the mayor and councillors should have more ability to do taxation, perhaps slightly differently to the way it is done on a national basis.