Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

Regarding the directly elected mayor of Dublin and the role he or she might play in respect of transport, as I told the Deputy previously, my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, and myself are working together on the directly elected mayor Bill to ensure he or she has a meaningful role in the Dublin region in respect of transport and transport infrastructure. As the Deputy rightly said, the original Bill was for the Dublin transport authority and it covered only the greater Dublin region and had specific powers and functions regarding land use, transport, traffic management and so on. We are devising a mechanism whereby all those powers that were contained within the DTA Bill will be contained within the National Transport Authority, and the mayor will head that particular part of the authority. He or she will have a meaningful role in regard to transport. It is important that he or she would have-----

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