Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As the Fianna Fáil Party spokesperson on local government, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak in support of Deputy Lahart's Bill. The legislation is a major step forward in advocating real local democracy as opposed to the narrow stranglehold of executive control that exists in Dublin and elsewhere. We should all be committed to breaking the shackles the Custom House holds over democratically elected members in local government.

The Minister of State, Deputy English, and I were elected to our local authority on the same weekend in 1999, which seems a long time ago. He has a deep commitment to local government, an area in which I spent a little more time than he did, and to ensuring it is strengthened rather than diminished.

From its inception, Deputy Lahart's proposal has been people orientated because it will facilitate a plebiscite on establishing an office of directly elected mayor. If approved by the people of Dublin, the proposal will strengthen the legitimacy and authenticity of the office when it is established.

During my time as a journalist, I interviewed several senior Dublin City Council economic officers, whose role was to promote the capital city as a destination for foreign investment, notably in the United States, Mexico and further afield. The need to have a mayor who is more than a figurehead is all the more pressing because publicly elected members and officials who travel from abroad to Dublin cannot get their heads around the fact that they are meeting a mayor who does not have executive powers. Instead, they must talk shop to the chief executive of the council and the role of the mayor is nothing more than to hold hands.

The proposed plebiscite is not prescriptive in terms of what powers a new mayor would have. These would be worked out through a discussion consequent on the proposal being passed. The shift in attitude that would be created by virtue of taking the first step of holding a plebiscite would be a significant advance in this discussion and would, I hope, result in a realisation of the goal of establishing an office of a directly elected mayor of Dublin.

While city and county managers are all exemplary professionals in their own right, the current system has not been established through a democratic process. Anyone who has served in local government will the know the constraints that apply under this system and the frustration it causes. A mayor for the whole of Dublin would have an immediate public resonance with the capital's citizens who would elect the mayor and whom the mayor would serve. By virtue of being elected, the mayor would have an immediate bond with the city's citizens. In times of strife and joy in the city and at times when a firm hand of leadership is required, people would look to their first citizen rather than a chief executive who is not in the public eye and had not been democratically elected.

In this Republic, we have mayors who have fine gold chains but no power at their command. From the get-go, their office is undermined by their lack of authority. In Dublin, the waters are further muddied by virtue of the fact there are four mayors rather than one central figure.

This Bill gives us a chance to create a pilot project, which, if successful, could hopefully be extended to all parts of the country in time. Crucially, it could lead to a seismic shift in how governance happens at local level. It would create a real sense of public transparency that the buck actually stops with somebody the people elected. Deputy Lahart referred to the very public controversy that engulfed the holding of a concert in Croke Park several years ago. On that occasion, the sheer lack of a central leadership figure was the one aspect that stood out. Instead, people came in from all sides trying to pull the threads together. That is one example of where a democratically-elected mayor could act as a standard bearer for all involved.

Aside from anything else, the people of Dublin across the four local authority areas deserve one figure who can speak for them while potentially creating a collaborative policy framework for all of Dublin in transport, economic policy and tourism. This would be good for all parts of our capital. Critically, this is a significant move in the support of democratically-elected local authority members whose role over the decades in local government has been diminished by the removal of some matters from local authorities' remit. Local authorities should be the first port of call for the delivery of services on the ground. The degree of central Government control, exerted by the Department, over local authorities is unreal. We have the most centralised system of government in the whole of western Europe. It is depressing.

The last item of local government reform by the then Minister, Phil Hogan, only diminished the role of councillors even further. It was not an enhancement. Despite whatever spin people want to put on it, the removal of town councils from urban areas left them bereft of the statutory financial powers that gave them real clout and an ability to focus on specific projects in our ever-growing urban areas without having to go through an overarching body. As the Minister of State, Deputy English, knows, as we come from the same town, the lack of financial separation away from an overarching body has created a scenario where we cannot spend specific resources or generate funds to target the social issues relating to urbanisation.

We need to see the move of power back to elected local authority members. The plebiscite proposed by Deputy Lahart is a major substantive and symbolic step in setting out that path. There is no better place for it to start than in our capital city. This Bill will set the standard and encourage local authorities in our other major cities to have directly-elected mayors.

I commend Deputy Lahart on all the work he has done and I hope the Bill will be successful.

See this speech in context