Ms Mary Rose Burke:

The question assumes a common understanding of what a directly-elected mayor is. That is the difficulty. We are trying to have a conversation around something that everybody in this room has probably a different idea of what "perfect" would look like. Until we have a proposed role description of what the powers would be and of the current deficits and what a proposed directly-elected mayor would be able to convene, consult and resolve, it is very difficult to tease out whether it is a good thing. As the Senator mentioned, what we want is governance, leadership and a voice, an advocate, for Dublin. We do not care what it is called. It is about the powers and the functions.