Ms Kate Feeney:

There is a huge community aspect to local politics. When we are at all the community events, we normally meet new guys at them. This goes right up the electoral system. I would not envy a directly-elected mayor the task of trying to make his or her way to community events right across the expanse of the county.

On thinking outside the box and representing areas other than one's own, we do this at the regional assembly all the time. When we were considering the RSES and the division of population growth between different counties – there are representatives from 12 counties – the debate on the population figures was the debate that stood out for me. It was probably the fieriest of all the debates. No more than in the Houses of the Oireachtas, there are those who will put forward the view of their county. There might be two conflicting counties or, in this instance, two conflicting villages within Dublin. The other members will sit back, listen to the debate and vote for the right thing. Therefore, you will generally get to the right result, so I would not be overly concerned about that.

I would have concerns about the time and resources of councillors, however, particularly if the job is going to get harder and take up more time. There are recommendations in the report. I have said to committee members that they should examine the report from the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities. We are struggling to keep people, including young women, in local government, as is well known, so we need to make sure that when we are doing what is proposed, we are strengthening the resources already in place.