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

However, it is important to bear in mind that we will always need a certain amount of oil and gas. We need it for medical devices, some plastics which are necessary, and we need it for aviation fuel. It is important to bear in mind that we may always need, for the foreseeable future anyway, some amount of oil and gas, and it might make more sense if that is our own rather than being imported. Gas is recognised in the energy White Paper as a transition fuel and as we move away from very dirty fuels such as coal and peat, for example, we may need to use natural gas for a period.

I am in favour of directly elected mayors. I have said that before. I do trust people, and the way one trusts people is by putting it to a plebiscite. One does not impose it on people, one puts it to a plebiscite and that is what we intend to do. It is relatively straightforward for Cork, Limerick and Waterford but not so straightforward for Dublin where there are four local authorities. We will need to look at what model might work there, but it is the Government's policy to put plebiscites to the people. We intend to do that next May at the same time as the local and European elections, but one thing we need to work out before that is what it means to have a directly elected mayor. That is what the Minister of State, Deputy John Paul Phelan, is working on now and he will come to Cabinet with it before the recess. If directly elected mayors only have the powers of existing mayors and cathaoirligh, they will not be able to do any of the things Deputy Eamon Ryan mentioned, so what we will need to do at the very least is to transfer the executive power of county and city CEOs to those mayors because it is not the fact that it is an elected position or a five-year position that makes the difference-----

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