Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The new mayor, whoever he or she will be, will have five staff. One of them, as we have all agreed, will be the special adviser and the legislation clearly defines that and does so quite well. My concern is that the other four people should be hired by the mayor from existing council staff members. I disagree with what Deputy O'Donoghue said but we will be open to supporting that if he puts down an amendment on Report Stage. We have 14 amendments and the two most important ones we have put down are amendments Nos. 8 and 13. The reason for that is we are looking at developing a new system and pillar of local government, which has not been done for over 100 years. The concern I have, which I have mentioned a number of times, is that if we do not get this right, nobody will replicate this. People will say that what was done in Limerick is a mess. We are potentially setting up the mayor to fail - not just in Limerick but anywhere that follows us - if they are not allowed to at least employ the people in their office. That is why amendment No. 13 is important and that is why we will push it.