Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak about the issue of directly elected mayors. A groupthink opinion has developed and it appears that the majority of Opposition parties and Deputies in the House, from Fianna Fáil to the Green Party and all parties in between, support the idea without being able to offer any meaningful explanation of how the role will actually work. On what we can all probably agree is that local government in Ireland is in desperate need of urgent reform. We do not really have local government but poorly funded local administration.

Consecutive Governments, beginning with Fianna Fáil in the 1990s, have whittled away the powers of local authorities, with the result that is now probably the most centrally governed country in the European Union. However, I am not convinced that the introduction of a directly elected mayor will resolve the issue. The argument in favour of having a directly elected mayor appears to be as follows. If Dublin, Galway or Cork had a single recognisable figurehead who was directly elected by the people, that person would have a mandate to use his or her executive powers to fix any problem. If it all sounds too good to be true, it is. Instead of making vague statements on the reasons we may need to have a directly elected mayor, the parties and the Government should examine how the model has worked in the United Kingdom in the past 15 years.

More than 20 years ago, before he became a war criminal, Tony Blair, on the verge of becoming Prime Minister for the first time, used similar rhetoric to that used by political parties here when he stated the heart of the problem was that local government needed recognised leaders if it was to fulfil a community leadership role. He said the people and outside organisations needed to know who was politically responsible for running the councils. His love of all things American, including its mayoral system, resulted in the Local Government Act 2000. Among the reforms contained in it was the possible adoption by local government of a directly elected mayor model. The residents of a city could vote through in a referendum that it would be governed by a directly elected mayor. Towns and cities would still retain councils and the plan was that the two would work together, with final responsibility residing with the mayor. Since the introduction of the legislation, there have been 53 referendums held in the United Kingdom, with only 16 of the 326 towns voting to be governed by a directly elected mayor. Although the lack of appetite for the proposal does not necessarily equate to failure, a study comparing a city that had adopted the model with the previous model of local government found there had been very little change in terms of policy output and spending. Research undertaken in the 16 cities in question has shown that directly elected mayors are just as dependent on central government for funding, that their introduction does not lead to a sudden upheaval in a city's fortunes or spending power and that it is extremely difficult for a mayor to exert influence in specific policy areas.

I will take the city of Liverpool as an example. At approximately 500,000, it has a similar population to Dublin, excluding the suburbs and other boundaries. From 2011 to 2012 the city had a standard Cabinet and council leader model. In that period the city spent 64% of its annual budget on social services, including education, housing and social care services. The following year, from 2012 to 2013, it voted in favour of the elected mayor model. Figures show that it now spends an almost identitcal figure, 62%, of its annual budget on social services. The new mayor had no choice but to work with the existing council. The same will happen in Dublin or Galway if they decide to adopt such a position. Not only have directly elected mayors in the United Kingdom been unable to exert any real power, they have not been taken seriously by the citizens of their towns and cities, for which one would hardly blame them. In 2002 voters in Hartlepool elected the mascot of the football club, H'Angus the Monkey, as their first mayor. His campaign slogan was "free bananas for schoolchildren", which was actually not a bad idea. He won two further consecutive elections and served for a total of ten years. In 2013 Hartlepool voted to get rid of the directly elected mayor and return to the original cabinet and council leader model.

Comparisons with cities such as New York or London are not helpful. The mayor of New York has a budget of $60 billion and appoints the police commissioner. As we know, the United States has a federal system. Therefore, the system of local government is established by each state, not the federal government. Local government is not dependent on central government for funding or powers. That is why the US system works, the UK model has failed and the Irish model will also more than likely fail. Similar to New York, London is cited as an example we should have directly elected mayors. However, it is not only at city but a region. Yes, it has a directly elected mayor, but there are also a Minister for London, a regional government office and a regional budget, as well as 32 councils in the 32 boroughs. The 32 councils are responsible for the majority of local services such as education services, social services, waste collection and road maintenance.

For the mayor system in Ireland to work like the US system, mayors would have to have significant executive powers, but I have yet to hear anyone outline from where those powers would come. They would need to be taken away from somebody who already has them and we do not do that too easily in Ireland. If a directly elected mayor were to exert real influence over a city, he or she would need similar powers to those vested in the Ministers for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Transport, Tourism and Sport and Communications, Climate Action and Environment. Given that for the past 25 years consecutive Governments have diluted the role of local government, it is unlikely that there will a complete U-turn on this policy. In fact, it is probably delusional.

In addition to ministerial powers, for directly-elected mayors to work, they will need powers similar to those now vested in semi-State organisations such as the National Transport Authority, NTA, and Córas Iompair Éireann, CIÉ. The newly created Land Development Agency is probably the worst thing that has happened in this Chamber since I came in here in March 2011. This agency will have significantly powers to source sites and land. Will these mayors be given similar powers? NAMA still has significant powers. It controls most of the development of the Dublin docklands. Will a directly-elected mayor be able to challenge NAMA's use of its powers or will he or she be given similar powers when NAMA is finally disbanded?

Truth be told, the Land Development Agency is NAMA mark 2 anyway, so this going to run and run. It will continue to use that mechanism to provide unaffordable housing to the people of Ireland at great cost, given that developers will be engaged who look for between €60,000 and €80,000 profit per unit for themselves. I do not expect that authority will be given to a mayor. There is a growing trend in this House of legislation being proposed that goes against empirical evidence and data. Legislation is instead drafted on the basis that if it sounds good then it must be good.

A Bill was passed last week on sexual offences which went against all of the empirical data yet the Government allowed it to advance to appease its coalition partners. It was a load of rubbish. The introduction of directly-elected mayors is similar in nature. It sounds like a great proposal, all the Opposition parties can get behind it and they can call and sell it to their constituents as something that will solve the problems in their cities or towns. When we drill a bit into the proposal, however, there is not much detail. Analysis of our nearest neighbours in the UK, where a similar system of central and local government operates, shows that the introduction of directly-elected mayors has not worked. It could be argued that it has been a bit of a disaster.

I welcome, therefore, the Minister of State's decision to hold a citizens' assembly to examine the proposal to introduce the office of a directly-elected mayor in Dublin. I ask him, however, to suspend the proposed plebiscites in Cork and Galway and allow the assembly to examine the overall proposal in respect of the whole country and not just Dublin. If do this, if we would like to dream about how it should be done, that is fine. It works for cities in America. Unless we are prepared to go down that road, however, and take so much power away from others and give it to the new mayor, we are wasting our time. This is just another sham that looks good and sounds good but is going nowhere. The mayor will just be a tool of the local authority, which has very little funding and is totally dependent on central government. This proposal will, more than likely, end up just costing the State more money without deriving any merit from it.

If this was an Opposition Bill and not a Government one, it would not get the money message. Imagine the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 not getting a money message yesterday. That is a new low for that scheme to stop Bills progressing. The Bill yesterday was opposed on the basis that introducing criminal offences could cost the State money and that it could be open to challenges. All legislation ever introduced here since the State was founded has been open to challenge. That is absolute bollocks.

See this speech in context