Mr. Art O'Leary:

On that point, that crystallises the two issues we are asked to examine. First, we were asked what kind of mayor we wanted. We interpreted that as determining what kind of powers the mayor should have. That is how we approached it. We looked at the full range of power that mayors have in Ireland and internationally. When we decided on the breadth and depth of the role, we then examined what kind of structures were needed to underpin this particular role in order to support it and ensure that the person could deliver on their mandate. That is what is set out in the report.

The report sets out the powers we think a mayor should have and what the administrative structures might look like underneath that. We had a short few months to deal with this and none of us was an expert on the first day. Those of us in local government knew a lot more about it. The technical detail of how this might be implemented will remain with the Legislature in the Oireachtas and the expertise in the Custom House in terms of how it might be rolled out. The mandate was to define the breadth of the powers and talk about what we needed in order to be able to deliver it.