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

As a public representative of one of the three cities concerned, I am very worried about the lack of time to debate this issue. I raised this point when we debated the proposals themselves. My concern is they will be lost because of the points already made that the focus so far has largely been on the money, that is, on the salaries. The Minister of State spoke on my local radio station a week ago last Monday. There have been three Monday debates on Live95FM and I participated in the other two, the first and the third. The third debate took place on Monday last. Among the people ringing into the station, there was a real focus on the money. A sitting councillor, who was on the programme with me last Monday, asked where the money will be found to pay the salaries. I understand there will be three salaries altogether but it does not appear that any extra money will be allocated to those local authorities to provide for the office of a directly elected mayor. Immediately, there is a conflict between the money available under the current system and what will be provided for the new system.

I want this to succeed. I am in favour of directly elected mayors. I note the Minister of State's script indicated it is intended that the plebiscites will take place on the same day as the European Parliament and local elections, namely, on Friday, 24 May. I wonder whether there is any possibility of putting it off. I hate to say that because I really want this to happen but it has to happen properly. The fact that Cork will have an extended boundary, Limerick and Waterford have merged city and county councils, Galway has gone off the table because it was not ready to make a decision on which option it was getting and Dublin was not included because it is to have a citizens' assembly makes a mixed bag of what should be a coherent policy on a huge and positive change in terms of democracy and of bringing people closer to decision-making in their local authority areas. This should be much more consistent but I believe it will be rushed and there will be many questions. In Limerick and Waterford, there will be questions about what if the directly elected mayor turns out to be from a rural area. I have nothing against the rural parts of Limerick city and county and Waterford city and county but mayors of cities are generally considered to be people who represent municipalities and we could end up with a mayor who does not live in the city. That would be a problem when dealing with people coming from other metropolitan areas with directly elected mayors who expect that this will be a city-led office. Those are the real difficulties we will have in persuading the public to vote for this.

I have read the document in full but I am not sure it answers the question about how the other elected people will relate to the directly elected mayor because the directly elected mayor will be putting forward a programme. That is a good thing in one way because it might avoid having the celebrity candidate that I was worried about because the mayor will have to set out a programme for what they intend to do. What about the other councillors who are elected by people in a local electoral area who also want to be able to bring forward the priorities of the people who elect them? Will they have less power than they have in the current system? All of those points are really important because what the local councillor does is very important to people wherever they live and I would hate to lose any of that. I also regret that there are no devolved powers because more powers could be devolved locally in areas such as education, social welfare, transport and others. Maybe that can be done in time. If it can, and if that can be added on, I would support that. My concern is that we do not have enough time to debate this. I do not know if what the Minister of State said would suggest that there is a possibility it will not happen on 24 May but if that is the case, the Minister of State might indicate that because it does not seem to be specifically stated in his speech that it will definitely happen on 24 May. I do not want this to be lost because we have seen what has happened in other countries where there has not been adequate information for people making vital decisions. We only have to consider the neighbouring country to see that. It would be a pity to lose something to which people would regret later not having given the go-ahead. I hope the Minister of State will be able to answer the various issues raised by those who have spoken so far, as well as other issues that will I am sure be raised by other Members.

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