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

In a Department, the Minister will often set the priorities, and then between Governments, the Secretary General will make sure of consistency and so on. The problem for the NTA is that there are people out there who believe that we should not have any more cycle lanes. I am not one of them but there are people who believe that. They believe that they have no democratic way of expressing and implementing that view. If 90% of Dubliners believed that we should have no more cycle lanes, they do not actually have a way of expressing that. I am using a ludicrous example but I am using it to give an example of how very well-meaning experts in national agencies have far more say than the people who are elected. The problem is that the people who are elected are all very parochial. A point I would make is that the valid case for a directly elected mayor is that largely, the decisions around the prioritisation of projects and the particular mechanisms are left to unelected officials.