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

It is something the Government is working on now. No proposal was brought to Cabinet today. I have not had backbenchers from outside Dublin object to this, or at least they have not made objections to me. Proper consideration of how this would work and what the role would be is required. It may be that a directly-elected mayor for the city of Cork on the new city boundaries might work more logically than one for Dublin, particularly as the latter is divided among three local authorities. That would need to be fleshed out. Each of those four local authorities in Dublin, the "four Dublins" as they like to call themselves, is a housing and planning authority. Are we discussing stripping housing and planning functions away from Dublin City Council, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, South Dublin County Council and Fingal County Council and giving them to a new mayor? Will that mayor have all those powers vested in himself or herself or will there be another council elected between the mayor and those authorities? All that must be figured out. It was not properly figured out when the then Minister, John Gormley, put forward his proposals, which is why they never became a reality.

See this speech in context