Mr. Martin Hoey:

Looking generally at this, there were two devolved organisations in Ireland. They were in Dublin originally and disappeared years ago. They would need to come back if we got a directly elected mayor. The first is the Dublin Transport Office, which was superseded by the NTA, and second is the Dublin Metropolitan Police. In other cities with mayors, policing is a local service. Would An Garda Síochána be happy to suddenly have a separate organisation - to bring back a Dublin metropolitan police and have the Garda for the rest of the country? Would the NTA also be happy to hand responsibility back to a Dublin transportation office, with the NTA running the rest of the country? Those are where problems will arise with a directly elected mayor who is in charge of these organisations needing to control his or her own area. I cannot see the existing big organisations handing over power easily. We have seen it also with the health boards. How many times have they changed their regions? I cannot see them changing again so that Dublin would be its own area. Dublin has never been its own area in health; it has always been part of other areas.