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

I might take my slot. I am a strong believer that our current system of local government is so broken, fragmented and weak in power that even the addition of a figurehead that only champions and has no power would be an improvement. Everybody is in agreement that that alone would not be sufficient. However, people who advocate for a directly-elected mayor say there would be a benefit in having that mayor in two key areas. There is probably a third as well. The first one is to create a greater efficiency of a citywide vision, for example the Dublin bikes project in Dublin city which is well liked. We have struggled to replicate that in the other three local authorities or to have any sort of cross-council operation of it. There are other active travel projects, for example the Sutton to Sandycove cycle lane. A long time was spent across different agencies and there was no single voice championing such cross-council projects. That is the first area where I think a directly-elected mayor would have a great benefit. Are there projects like that where the existence of four Dublin local authorities, and there is no suggestion in the report that they would be abolished, has posed a challenge for the NTA? The second reason people think that a directly-elected mayor for Dublin would be a benefit is that such a person would be a champion for Dublin-specific issues to national agencies that perhaps do not have a Dublin focus.

In some ways the NTA, because of the scale of its operations in Dublin, has more of a focus on Dublin than most national agencies, but in health, housing and other areas there are national agencies that probably do not pick up early on emerging issues in Dublin. The feeling is that a directly elected mayor for Dublin would voice those early emerging issues and call for solutions from national agencies. In the NTA's area, there is the failure to deliver big Dublin infrastructure projects by Governments in a timely and budget-driven way, and there are reasons things happen. The feeling is a voice for Dublin would demand more from national agencies. I am thinking of the decision to cancel the metro project between 2012 and 2015 or 2016 and whether that would have happened if there had been a democratically elected mayor in place.

I am being parochial but I keep telling the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform that the Finglas Luas line is one of the most advanced lines, is shovel-ready and all of that type of stuff. A project like that could be championed and attract public expenditure investment more quickly than if it were left up to different local authorities or to a national agency that might have priorities around the rest of the country. The first part is efficiency between the four local authorities in that a single voice might drive that and the second part is being a champion for Dublin-specific issues to national agencies. Could that be helpful?