Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I concur with many of Deputy Duffy's comments about the experience of being a councillor, for example on how a councillor can challenge effectively, interrogate his or her functions properly and give strategic leadership when the executive has all of the resources. We all try our best when we are in those roles but it is a David versus Goliath situation.

I want to make this first point and make it respectfully.

Some of the arguments put forward apply to any level of democracy. One could ask, why have elections to the Dáil when you could end up with single-issue candidates? Indeed, we have ended up with single-issue candidates. That argument was made against directly elected mayors in the UK and it was said that you would end up with joke or celebrity candidates or comedians or whatever. Of course, there is a comedian as President in Ukraine who is internationally considered one of the best it has ever had. That is the nature of democracy; people get to choose who they vote for. Would it be the worst thing if people in Dublin said what they are really concerned about is housing, transport, public realm, crime or safety and they picked one or two of those and said they want a focus on those for the next five years? Most people think it would be a good thing.

Many people in Dublin who have lived in or even travelled around other cities around Europe have a sense that we are getting left behind as a city. They travel to other places and see infrastructure being delivered much more quickly in areas that are not necessarily economically more prosperous than us. I have been back and forth to Edinburgh, where my sister lives. You can see how the infrastructure there has been improved and it seemed an awful lot faster - it is a smaller area than Dublin. I was in Bordeaux for a few days during the summer and I saw the incredible transport infrastructure it has put in, in a much smaller city with fewer resources than us. It makes you ask questions - what are they doing that enables them to deliver these things better? That said, a directly elected mayor may be one way of making these changes but it definitely is not the only way. If we were not going down the directly elected mayor route, in which other ways can things be reformed to strengthen local government? There is no question that local government in Ireland is among the weakest in Europe; in the OECD, we are pretty much bottom of the table along with Belarus and one or two other countries. If not a directly elected mayor, in what way could it be reformed? If a directly elected mayor, what powers would the witnesses like to see devolved to them? I concur about the comments on the four local authorities - it took a while for them to bed in but they are working very well. Communities are very happy with the way they are at the moment. To change all of that, go back to the drawing board and have all that disruption would not be worth it. Most people would view that as not being a good approach to take.