Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Humbly, I disagree. The most important thing is that this works. It will evolve. On the normal workings of the directly elected mayor, there may be some aspects of the work they do that are of a heavy lifting nature. It may not be a policy aspect. They may wish to devolve and delegate it for the smooth running of their office. They may not want to get bogged down in an enormous amount of detail. It is about management. The mayor's role is to effectively drive Limerick forward in a constructive way around policy. That person will get a mandate from the people of Limerick. He or she must be given some level of flexibility in how he or she runs the powers vested in him or her. Ultimately, he or she makes the decisions and still has oversight. The director general will still report to the mayor. There has to be a practical import in anything. For this to work, there has to be co-operation and a good working relationship between the mayor and the director general and the mayor and the chamber, working collectively for Limerick. Nothing is an exact science. Equally, in what we provide in the legislation, there is an aspect of it being new and ground-breaking. It is not perfect but we are putting in a practical measure. Ultimately, it is entirely under the control of the mayor, who will get a democratic mandate from the people of Limerick.