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

I also welcome the opportunity to come back to this issue. We had a wide-ranging debate last night on the Fianna Fáil Bill, while tonight we are speaking on the Green Party Bill. I addressed both last night and said there were good elements in both. I would like to see a comprehensive proposal and the Minister's point about widespread consultation fits into that scenario. I support the idea of a plebiscite in the Fianna Fáil legislation but the Green Party has given us a good deal of content to help us consider what, specifically, the functions of the directly elected mayor should be. It is really important that we get clarity on these functions and on the hierarchy of decision making because otherwise we will get confusion and a lot of structures but not many new initiatives or ideas and not much on what is best for Dublin overall, as opposed to its different bits. For example, we need clarity on what the responsibility would be for transportation planning and for the infrastructure around waste. We need a sense of the overall aims and objectives in those areas. If there is a clear function for the mayor and the other structures under the hierarchy we will get a sense of direction. In Ireland we have often had very little clarity about what we are trying to achieve and what we want this place to look like in ten years' time. What size will it be? What services will it have? Will it be choked up by traffic?

Will it be able to deal with the waste that is produced? Will it have an effective policy whereby people minimise the waste they produce and act to minimise the level of air pollution and the volume of traffic on the roads? The danger in not being very clear on this is that we would end up with many structures and individuals but not with a great deal of progress. We need clarity around this.

We spoke about the need to ensure there is widespread discussion of this issue among the citizens of Dublin and those of the other cities. I support what the Green Party said about there being no reason this should be only a proposal for Dublin.

Prior to coming to the Chamber, I spoke on the radio station of a certain well known school in Dublin. The first question I was asked was about housing while the second question was on the idea of having a directly elected mayor for Dublin. That simple example shows that people in Dublin are talking about this issue. As Deputy Ó Broin said, it has been talked about for a long time. The question is, what point will we reach with this proposal? The idea that we would deal with it again in six months' time at least indicates this will not be a debate that goes nowhere. We hope it will not be like the issue of Seanad reform or another such issue that we seemed to talk about forever and on which there were endless reports, but where we did not get around to doing anything about it. In that sense, we need to continue this debate. I am not saying we should have formalised debates like this but the debate needs to be extended to include the citizens.

During the debate on the other Bill last night, I spoke of the limited experience I have of the French model - obviously, there are other models. We need to have much more clarity on the different responsibilities between the officers and the elected members of councils. Often the system is such that the officials of a council will draft reports and proposals and bring them to the elected members who will then decide whether to reject or approve them. I would like elected members to bring forward many more initiatives. The idea of having a directly elected mayor would give such a mayor the authority to bring forward specific initiatives and put them to the other elected members and also to the people. That would need to be refined. It would mean there would be more of an onus on the elected members to show initiative and bring forward ideas based in their experience of the communities they represent.

Most of what I wanted to say on this Bill I said during the debate on the other Bill last night. We all need to think strategically around exactly how this would work. If this measure were introduced in a fuzzy or an unclear way, it would simply result in a great deal of paperwork and discussion but not necessarily in much action, and action is what we need.

I cite the example of housing where, from my experience, it takes an inordinate amount of time to get from the point when a decision is made to build houses in an area and the money is allocated to the point where the houses are constructed. There are many such delays. If we had a sense of democratic buy-in, which the proposal before us contains, we would have much more of a sense that local public representatives do not almost automatically reject proposals because they are brought forward by officials of the council. There would be much more of a sense of having to weigh up the options and ensure that the actions are delivered in accordance with policy.

I congratulate the Green Party on bringing forward this proposal. Generally, there is a sense that this proposal is a good idea. We now need to be more concrete on what the functions would involve and on the implementation of this proposal.

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