Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Labour Party will support on Second Stage the two Bills being presented to the Dáil this week regarding a directly elected mayor of Dublin. Both Bills have good elements. Ideally, some of them should be pulled together on Committee Stage. Will we ever get to Committee Stage though? The Government's amendment seems to be the default position, in that everything gets pushed at least six months down the road before it is addressed. All parties want there to at least be discussion and progress on this topic.

The Labour Party proposed a similar Bill to Fianna Fáil's, in that the people of Dublin should be entitled to vote on whether there should be such a role as the mayor of the greater Dublin area. The Fianna Fáil Bill is drafted to enable such a plebiscite, but it is without details as to what functions the mayor would have. In a way, we are debating something without knowing exactly what that role would be. On the other hand, the Green Party Bill outlines in detail what those functions would be under the Waste Management Act 1996, the Planning and Development Act 2000 and the Local Government Act 2001. The Green Party tried to introduce such legislation while in government with Fianna Fáil, but agreement could not be reached. In conjunction with the functions and powers of the mayor, there would be a regional authority of Dublin and a Dublin regional development board under the Green Party's current Bill.

9 o’clock

We are debating the Fianna Fáil Bill today but we must look at the two Bills together. They both advocate the preparation of a regional plan as one of the functions of the directly-elected mayor in consultation with the various Dublin regional authorities.

The Green Party Bill gives us a good basis on which to discuss what a directly-elected mayor would do, what his or her functions might be. Previous speakers talked about some of the possible functions. There is scope for much debate and discussion on what exactly a directly-elected mayor would do. I support the Green Party's suggestion that if it is good for Dublin then why should it not be good for Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Kilkenny and perhaps other places as well for the benefit of citizens. There are elements of both Bills that are definitely worth considering and discussing. However, the Green Party Bill does not provide for a plebiscite on the issue and we are in favour of such a plebiscite.

In considering what such an arrangement might look like in operation we have the example of London where we have had mayors on both sides of the political divide in Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson. However there are lots of other models as well. I attended a conference on sustainable cities a couple of years ago and I was sitting beside the mayor of Vancouver. Vancouver is just one example of a city where there has been good leadership in terms of making it a very pleasant place to live and work. I do not know if anyone present has been to Vancouver but it is one of those cities that has pretty much everything in terms of what one would want living in a big city. Perhaps there are reasons for that such as wealth or other factors but there are other examples as well that should be considered in terms of what a directly-elected mayor might do for the city of Dublin and similarly what directly-elected mayors might do for other cities in this country.

I also favour more executive powers for councillors. I was chair of a twinning committee for a number of years. I am sure many Members have been involved in twinning committees, in particular with towns and cities in Brittany. I am going back some time but at the time the mayor and senior councillors in Brittany had responsibility for budgets. There was a councillor in charge of the transport budget and another was in charge of the housing budget and they had to make decisions. One of the problems with the Irish system is that councillors can rail against all kinds of things and say one should build more houses but when houses are being built in their own area they very often object. If councillors had more responsibility for budgets then we would have more responsible decision making from them, which is very much needed.

The debate must be viewed in a broader context. Consultation has begun on a replacement for the national spatial strategy and we recently debated the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill in the Dáil, which provides for that replacement, to be known as the national planning framework and it will be put on a statutory footing. The sustainable development of Dublin, and all of our cities, has to be part of the overall national planning for a balanced country where communities, urban and rural, can flourish.

With a projected population growth of half a million people over the next 20 years, we need to prepare now for the housing, transportation, environmental and social space in which people can have fulfilling lives. Allowing the citizens of our capital city to decide on who should lead the development of Dublin is a positive step to strengthen local democracy in the shaping of the future.

It is important to consider the broader context. The Minister referred to that in his speech in terms of the establishment of town councils again. The Labour Party acknowledges that the abolition of town councils has left a vacuum that needs to be filled. The old system was haphazard in terms of where there was, or was not, a town council. My county of Limerick, in spite of having a number of large towns such as Kilmallock, Abbeyfeale, Newcastlewest and others, had no town council whereas other very small towns around the country had town councils. We propose that all medium-sized towns should have directly-elected councils with dedicated budgets. We do not advocate going back to the old system exactly but there needs to be a system of local democracy at town level.

The two Bills under discussion this week give us, the elected representatives of the people, the opportunity to lead debate on democratic reform but we must ensure that people and communities get an opportunity to participate fully in that debate. If we have learned anything from the Brexit referendum in Britain and the American presidential election it is that people need to feel they are part of the decision-making process and that they are not having decisions imposed on them.

Some of the Members from Dublin talked about the difficulty with the various Dublin local authorities and concerns from Fingal that Dublin City Council might be trying to take over the show, as it were. I had some doubts about the amalgamation of the city and county local authorities in Limerick a couple of years ago because it was not just a case of expanding the city boundaries but of taking in the entire county. However, overall it has had a good effect on the city in so far as we do not have this unnatural boundary where one suddenly goes from the city into the county even though, in effect, it is the greater city area. It has allowed for more co-ordination of planning and services and it has given a sense of the place as being a more broader conurbation, a city that can go places. There is a renewed confidence in Limerick now. That is not due only to the fact that the city and county have merged but that is part of it. From that perspective, I suggest that the fear that Dublin city would dominate and that the outer fringes would be ignored if there is a directly-elected mayor with overall responsibility for the entire Dublin region is unfounded. That has not been the case in Limerick and in fact we have seen some really good developments in what was in the county but is now in the suburbs. I just wanted to refer to that at this point in the debate as well. I hope the Bill will get to Committee Stage where we will refine the two proposals that are before us this week and have something really positive for Dublin and other cities.

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