Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am and remain in favour of a directly-elected mayor for Dublin. I think the same logic applies to other cities as well, and even potentially to counties and other local authorities. That would involve a major transfer of power from county and city managers, or chief executives as they are now called, to somebody elected. That would be a very big change in the way our local government works. The relationship would be similar to that which exists between a Minister and a Secretary General, as opposed to all the power, or almost all the power, residing with the chief executive, as it does now. However, we need to be more definitive on what proposal we are actually making to people before we have a plebiscite. We have pencilled in a plebiscite for this autumn and the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, will bring proposals to Cabinet in the next few weeks.

I was very much against the proposals that were made by former Minister Gormley from Deputy Eamon Ryan's party because he proposed, essentially, to have a super-mayor who would be a mayor over the four existing local authorities in Dublin. Therefore, we would have the four existing local authorities all with their own chief executives, all with their own mayors, and then another super-mayor over that with very little power indeed. The last thing we need is another layer of bureaucracy in local government or between local government and national government.

I believe the exact role of an elected mayor needs to be fleshed out. The Deputy mentioned, for example, transport. Are we suggesting that Dublin Bus be transferred from national government to a Dublin executive mayor? How would it apply to the DART, for example, which runs on rail lines that also connect other parts of the country? What would happen with the housing budget and would it be a transfer from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government to that authority? If that mayor had an enterprise role, would the IDA and Enterprise Ireland cease to operate in the Dublin region or would there be some sort of double structure? Those things need to be fleshed out before we actually put a proposal to the people.

Realistically, if we look at what was done in London, for example, while I am not sure a plebiscite was held there, even after the decision was taken to establish a directly-elected mayor in London, it did not just happen six months later and they had a programme as to how that was done over time. There also is the question of revenue-raising powers and how any directly-elected mayor with no revenue-raising powers would be able to do any of the things the Deputy mentioned. Would the property tax go to the mayor's office? Would VAT collected in a particular city go to the mayor's office? All of those things need to be fleshed out and thought through and I do not think this had been done adequately yet.

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