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

They relate to Part 6, which deals with the holding of plebiscites to consider proposals by other local authorities to provide for a directly elected mayor of their administrative area.

Amendments No. 83 and 84 in the name of Deputy Cian O'Callaghan relate to the process to initiate a plebiscite proposal. Section 43 provides that a plebiscite of the electors of an administrative area may be proposed in the circumstances where a local authority corporate policy group recommends it and the elected council approves it, a petition is signed by more than 20% of the electorate and the chief executive certifies it, or the Minister directs it.

Amendment No. 83 proposes to remove the step whereby the corporate policy group considers the matter of a plebiscite and proposes it to the full council for consideration and that the matter would rather simply be one for the council. I have no doubt Deputy O'Callaghan, as he articulated, has a rationale for the proposal, but in my view, going back to what Deputy McAuliffe said, it is appropriate for the corporate policy group to have a role in this matter and to support the council in its consideration of this matter in a cohesive way.

Amendment No. 84 seeks to alter the requirement for a petition to be signed by a percentage of the electorate and seeks to reduce to 10% from 20%. It is similar to a recommendation the Deputy made in the pre-legislative scrutiny in the committee, which sought to lower the percentage of registered eligible voters required to sign a petition for a mayoral plebiscite. The rationale behind the recommendation was that the electoral register contains a significant number of people who may be deceased, have relocated, have emigrated and so on. Therefore, to get 20% eligible voters would in fact be closer to 25% or 30% of those listed on the register, which Deputy Quinlivan referenced. It was recommended that the threshold of 20% be lowered. However, this same argument could be used to increase the threshold.

I would add that, since its enactment, the implementation of a number of provisions in the Electoral Reform Act 2022 has and will continue to improve the integrity of the electoral register. The provisions in section 43 of the Bill are consistent with the programme for Government with regard to holding plebiscites. Reading directly from the programme for Government, the commitments regarding directly elected mayors allows:

for plebiscites to be held in 2024 in any local authority that wishes to have a directly elected mayor. Demand will be demonstrated at the request of the local authority or by [means] of a petition from 20% of registered voters.

On the basis that the provisions are consistent with programme for Government, I cannot accept this amendment.

Amendment No. 88 in the name of Deputy Quinlivan relates to section 48. That section provides that, where the outcome of a plebiscite is in favour of a directly elected mayor, the Minister shall, within two years, prepare and submit a report to the Oireachtas containing proposals for legislative measures to provide for a directly elected mayor of that administrative area. Amendment No. 88 proposes to require the Minister to act within a 12-month or one-year period. While it is anticipated that the experience of and the learnings taken from the establishment of the office of directly elected mayor with executive functions in Limerick city and county will be informative and provide important insights in any future process, it would be important for the Minister to have sufficient time to consider the detail of the plebiscite proposal and develop policy and legislative proposals having regard to the specific local authority area involved. For example, in the case of the Limerick proposal for the directly elected mayor, that process involved the establishment of the independent advisory group under the chairmanship of Tim O'Connor and its subsequent report, which facilitated consultation with a wide range of key stakeholders which informed the subsequent legislation. I do not think we should potentially rule out that type of engagement, which I think was, in the main, very positive, by restricting the time period within which the Minister is required to act. Therefore, I cannot accept this amendment. There is no reason the Minister could not do it earlier but I think we have to give sufficient latitude that is not too long of a period to get it right. Therefore, on that basis, I cannot accept amendment No. 88.