Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

This legislation is premature and has not been thought through properly. These are also the sentiments expressed by Deputy Noel Ahern, as I understood him. It is interesting that the concerns he expressed are, according to reports, held by many other Fianna Fáil backbenchers and possibly some Ministers and Ministers of State. It indicates that this legislation is being pushed because the Green Party wants it. I do not believe the Fianna Fáil Party wants it but is just supporting it to keep the Green Party on board for the budget and so forth. It will be interesting to see whether the legislation will be a deal breaker. If there is a vote on it, will Deputy Noel Ahern adhere to the principles he has just expressed or will he simply go through the lobbies with his colleagues? I believe he means what he says. I was a county councillor at the same time as Deputy Noel Ahern and was on the Dublin Regional Authority with him as well.

It is not good if this Bill is going to be railroaded through just to keep the Green Party in the Government and at the expense of local democracy. There are fundamental problems in this Bill with regard to local democracy and a number of them have been raised in this debate. No local government reform is being discussed. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government promised local government reform and a White Paper on local government. He was due to bring forward proposal a couple of years ago but they have not been produced. If there was local government reform, what would happen to the present structures of county, city and town councils? This legislation is brought forward before any of the other work has been done on local government reform. For that reason it is premature.

It is also being superimposed. The example of the HSE was mentioned by another speaker. The HSE was imposed on the health boards. It is the same in this case in that this position is being imposed on the existing local government structures, which might or might not be reformed in the future. There is an imbalance in proposing the new Dublin regional authority to replace the existing one and a new position of directly elected Dublin regional mayor. The seven or eight other regional authorities will not have directly elected mayors. There will be a disproportionate number of representatives on the Dublin Regional Authority compared with the other regional authorities. What will be the relationship between the two?

If we decided in the future to devise a hybrid of town, county and city councils to try to make local government more local and based around organic local areas, where will this new Dublin Regional Authority and the mayor position fit into that? The Labour Party supported the concept of a directly elected mayor but not what is being proposed in this legislation. The party would never have imagined that something could be just plonked down in this way, without being properly thought through or subject to consultation. That is the other concern. The original proposals were brought forward last February. The party consulted at that stage but it was very much presented as a fait accompli, to which some minor amendments were made subsequently. That is not proper consultation about what a directly elected mayor would entail.

I have my doubts about introducing this for only one region, and leaving out the other regions. There should have been a framework. In Britain, for example, I understand legislation was introduced to allow a local authority to decide to have a directly elected mayor and to hold a referendum on it. Some areas in Britain voted not to have a directly elected mayor. I will discuss that further later.

I do not accept there is such an urgent need for this legislation that it should be rushed through. I attended a presentation by Dr. Aodh Quinlivan in UCC about the experience of trying to introduce this model in other countries. It has not always been like the experience with Ken Livingstone in London or the other places that have been mentioned. It has gone wrong in many areas. Many people have voted against having a directly elected local authority mayor when the option was put to them. The voters have said "No". That is one issue. Second, some areas have had to abandon it and reverse the decision to have a directly elected mayor. In some areas, joke candidates have been elected. There have been many bad experiences with this process but none of that has been taken on board. There is a terrible political correctness, particularly coming from the Green Party, that one must agree to something and must not question these great wisdoms, such as with regard to a directly elected mayor for Dublin. One must do this and one must do that.

I do not necessarily agree with my colleague, Deputy Broughan, regarding his dislike of the arrangement that exists at present between the councillor and the city manager. This is something that exists in other countries, such as America, and many places have decided to continue with it. Very often it works quite well. It is a fact that councillors often have more power on local authorities than Government backbenchers or Members of the Opposition have in the Dáil. They can get things done that make life better for the people they represent in the locality. Deputy Gogarty spoke very cynically about local councillors. He was a councillor with me on South Dublin County Council and he achieved things on that council, as I did.

Very positive work is carried out by local authorities such as South Dublin County Council. They are trying to deal with unemployment by setting up local jobs task forces, devising campaigns to encourage people to buy in local businesses and housing Travellers. There are often campaigns against Traveller accommodation but councillors are doing the right thing. The Adamstown strategic development zone was adopted by South Dublin County Council when Deputy Gogarty and I were on that council. It was a major step forward in planning local towns.

We need to stop doing ourselves down and doing down the value of the work that is done by representatives and institutions. It is a general issue. I read an article by Conor Brady in The Irish Times yesterday. At last, somebody has said we have a relatively stable political democracy and stable institutions in this country. We take that fact for granted at our peril. We have come out of a civil war, solved another war on the island and many positive things have been delivered by our politics and our elected representatives over the years. We have not had a fascist party rise to prominence or a fascist dictator in power. We must think about that and the direction in which we are headed. This Bill is about more centralisation; it is about one figure who is supposed to be benign and wonderful, a messiah for the future. I have my doubts about that type of approach.

Many questions have been raised about the Bill. The Dublin Regional Authority has raised many practical questions that will have to be examined on Committee Stage. What will happen to the existing staff of the regional authority? The mayor can appoint five staff members. I believe that could be patronage or cronyism. It could be totally anti-democratic. Would they constitute a cabinet and where would that leave the other members of the Dublin Regional Authority? The Bill leaves out lots of the current responsibilities. The Dublin Regional Authority has outlined that and I am sure the Minister has a copy of its comments.

The Bill is a damp squib. The powers are very weak and the functions do not seem to be different from what is already in place. However, the mayor would have some very draconian powers. For at least a year before the end of the mayor's term, if he or she vacates the office the Minister can appoint a mayor without holding an election. That is neither right nor democratic but the very opposite.

The mayor will be able to make directions to transfer property from one local authority area to another and, as far as I can see, will have great powers in regard to the regional panelling guidelines, even if he or she disagrees with other local authorities or those on the Dublin Regional Authority. There are serious problems. If this is so urgent why is it not urgent to the Green Party? We are all elected on an equal basis. We were founded in 1922 and every person in this country gets to hold us all accountable and vote for us. It is not important to the Government that the four vacant seats in this House are filled yet this Bill is being given priority.

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