Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the work done by my colleague, Deputy John Lahart, in preparing this legislation. As Deputies Eamon Ryan and Curran said, we can all work on this together as a collective. The benefit of the legislation versus what the Green Party has presented is that it is not overly prescriptive. It is important to have a broad and wide public consultation process with stakeholders, the public and councillors to see what powers they want devolved and what powers of many of the agencies of the State could potentially be in the remit of a directly elected mayor.

One of the four Dublin local authorities is in my area, which borders two others. The chief executives work extremely well together. On housing, for example, Paul Reid, the CEO of Fingal County Council, has done phenomenal work and is an excellent chief executive. It is not about robbing the powers of councillors or the executive branch of local authorities, but trying to give an impetus to proper policy making and providing an overarching and co-ordinated approach to selling Dublin at home and abroad. We lack this. While the Lord Mayor does excellent work, and we also have mayors in the four local authorities, there is no proper co-ordination on policy or on making Dublin attractive as an international city vis-à-visother competitors cities. It is important we do not pitch this proposal, as was mentioned previously, against other areas and regions of the country which require attention and investment.

On a basic point from my experience, parts of Dublin 15 are in Dublin City Council, others are in Fingal County Council and South Dublin County Council borders the Liffey side. When I tried to present an idea on the extension of the Dublin bike scheme, I was met with a bureaucratic wall. I was told it was a Dublin City Council initiative and it would be very difficult to extend it to other suburban areas outside the city council area. If we had a mayor who took policy on a physical activity such as cycling, cut the red tape between the local authorities and drove an overarching cross local authority strategy, it would work positively to the benefit of citizens throughout Dublin.

Taking the web summit as an example, we heard about more red tape and difficulties on transport, policing and trying to make Dublin a proper product for various companies and investors who want to come here and set up something. We saw how Lisbon was a much easier place to establish such a large summit. If we look at some of the international examples of policing, such as what Giuliani did in New York by taking a zero tolerance approach to crime, there are many areas with potential regarding the possibilities for the devolution of powers. A directly elected mayor could show leadership and a process of accountability to the people. Many people complain to us. At the weekend, someone with a shop in the north inner city which has been burgled, robbed and smashed a number of times complained to me that despite interactions with gardaí, the person feels there is not a proper policing presence. There is no co-ordinator in our city to look at policing and other areas of responsibility. This legislation provides an open process of public consultation, which would incorporate some of the ideas the Green Party and others, but would put forward a model that is accountable to the House and would be agreed by the Oireachtas. This is an important democratic threshold in the legislation. The Minister could not grant whatever executive powers he or she sees fit. It is up to the Oireachtas to decide, and subsequently there will be a directly elected mayor, hopefully in 2019. It would provide a great impetus for Dublin as a city. I hope it can be progressed positively through the Stages in the House. I thank my colleague, Deputy Lahart, for the work he has done.

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