Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am very proud to be able to speak on the Bill. I think I have a slight obligation to explain what is going on politically - although to be honest, I am not sure what is going on politically. Perhaps in the explaining we could get a bit of clarity.

As I said in introducing our Bill, I would be quite happy to insert the provisions of the Fianna Fáil Bill into our Bill. As Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan has suggested, it would fit reasonably well. Our party has always believed in consultation and the idea of a plebiscite makes a certain amount of sense, so we would quite happily support that.

There is more going on. To a certain extent there is a three-way play going on. It is very good to see the Minister, Deputy Coveney, here. He is suggesting that we could do a bit of consultation before the consultation mentioned in the Fianna Fáil Bill, before putting the question to the people. I have no objection to that. The nature of politics here at the moment is that we should be working with each other. It is not necessarily new politics, but rather could be described as politics of pause for thought.

When I was thinking about the detail of whether we should have a lord mayor or just a mayor, I was thinking that poor old Lord Miriam was outside at the bottom of the steps earlier today and they had the smelling salts out trying to revive her, she was in such a state. She has to write about what is going on here and she said, "For God's sake, will you give us a story. Where's the fight?" I said to her, "Listen, there's a fight going on between ourselves and Fianna Fáil at the moment on what in God's name we're going to do with this whole Bill and process." I found myself appearing on the "Drivetime" programme with Deputy Lahart. We were like two boxers shaping up - seconds out, round two - and it turned into a ballet, where we were both swinging, but not exactly landing and not even trying to land against each other because I think we do not fundamentally disagree on the idea of having to have a mayor. That is not much of an explanation of the politics of what is going on.

I look forward to the debate on the details of our Bill tomorrow, and maybe we can hear from the Minister, Deputy Coveney, on how his proposed consultation might work. We deserve to hear that as part of the pre-consultation to the consultation to the plebiscite to - please God - the landing 16 years after Noel Dempsey first put out the idea. We have been consulting in real detail with all parties over the years, which is why we presented a very detailed Bill.

I offer a few thoughts on the nature of consultation. We should be honest and recognise that consultation on political process stuff is not easy. As soon as I leave here tonight, I will head to the Tara Towers Hotel to attend a public meeting about the Merrion Gates. I assure Deputies that the hall will be packed and that everyone will have a view on the specifics of the traffic management arrangements and how it affects local housing. If I put up a notice next week that we were thinking of having a consultation on what sorts of executive powers a mayor might have versus the current system, or whether a regional authority should have 15 or 30 members, we all know that it would not exactly lead to a full hall. There would be some political anoraks there, but it is not an easy thing to consult about. I would be interested to hear from Fianna Fáil as to how it believes the consultation might work.

I would also be interested to know how a plebiscite might work. My instinct is that one of the ways we could get this over the line and make it happen is by having an answer to journalists' questions when they put the microphones up and ask how much it will cost, and being able to say we can do this in a way without implying a cost. That is one question I have on a plebiscite. Holding a full referendum plebiscite is reasonably expensive. Is there a way of doing this without such expense? That is one of the concerns people have. I would be interested to get the detail of how the plebiscite will work. Those details are not particularly covered in the Bill as I read it. It would be useful to get those sorts of details.

This is the main point I have to make tonight and I look forward to hearing the Minister's response. If we are going to go through this consultation process, this is a good time for such consultation. I am all for consultation and involving the public as much as we can. We have a little bit of time as the election date in 2019 is not straight ahead.

We must be careful to not just use it as a prevarication period but we have a little bit of time. If we have this opportunity, my instinct is that consultation should also look at how we get a directly elected mayor for Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Kilkenny. I pick those places specifically because I believe that we need to get our cities right in terms of where we go from here. That is not to run down the importance of more rural councils or other councils around the State but there are very particular problems in our cities in transport, housing, planning and economic development. These are problems that are specific to cities and we need to get to the understanding that is self-evident and true, that the success of Dublin as a city depends on, and is helped by, the success of Cork as a city and vice versa. It is not a case of Dublin versus Cork, Cork versus Limerick, Galway versus Waterford or any other possible combination. We are competing internationally in a globalised economy that even Donald Trump cannot totally reverse. The economic competition is occurring between cities. If one of Ireland's cities is strong the others can be strong too. Let us use the opportunity to get a directly elected mayor for Cork. I have my views on how it could be done. I would be happy to engage in a consultation process to try to share those views so that come June - if the Minister's timeline is set for June in terms of having it all ready to go - we could have a proposal ready for Cork, Galway, Waterford, Limerick and Kilkenny in that timeframe.

On a process around consultation, which is the central point to the Bill, I would be interested to hear the Minister's views on the following idea. To a certain extent we are going to go out with the national planning framework and also do a consultation process around the very same reasons we need a directly elected mayor such as the sense of long-term vision as to where housing is placed, how we develop our transport system, how we see our cities going green, how we develop green spaces and the big vision thinking. In this moment of politics we need to pause for thought. The national planning framework should be centre stage in all our work here. If we do not get this right, when we turn on the tap of capital expenditure, which will turn on - according to the Minister for Finance in any presentations I have seen - in 2019-2020. This is why we have just one or two years in which to think about this. We already have some ideas as to where the funding should go for transport, housing and other infrastructure investments. This is not something where we wait for 2019 and then wait for some smart, directly elected mayor to come along and say: "I have an idea to develop the centre of the city rather than the outskirts." We need to start answering some of those processes now. I say that we should integrate the consultation into the bigger, more important fundamental questions that we must ask around how we see our cities develop to 2040 so that for once we start doing proper long-term investment planning.

I do not know if the Ceann Comhairle was there when Mr. Derry Gray, the president of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce said at a recent dinner that team Dublin needs to get together. They all recognise that we are lousy at this at the moment and we have let our cities down. We have a great city but we have not served the people well with the disjointed lack of long-term co-ordinated thinking in planning and transport. I want an elected mayor so there would be an actual office and we could say: "That is your job, pull everyone together and make sure it happens." That call from the business community is not insignificant. I stand up for every community regarding the need for a directly elected mayor as it is also a social project, but the business community knows where the economy is going in this city. The business community knows that our economic development is in peril and it is due, more than anything else, to the lack of long-term thinking, investment, and good planning in housing, transport and other infrastructure. If we get that in place our city, and indeed Cork, Galway, Waterford, Limerick and Kilkenny can thrive. Let us do that as part of the consultation on a directly elected mayor rather than just going out and asking people if it should be a regional authority of 15 or of 30. That will not inspire people and we need to inspire people with something slightly bigger and something slightly more.

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