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

-----led by a judge. There were also campaigns on the ground and it was passed in one city. Limerick city and county voted in favour of having a directly elected mayor and will now have one. That will act as a demonstration project and other parts of the country will see how successful it is and in time, they will want the same. I would like Dublin and Galway to vote on the matter in 2021 but there will be a Dublin citizen's assembly before that, which needs to examine the wider issues of local government in Dublin, how it should work and where the mayor would fit in. The decision of the people of Limerick to vote in favour gives them a real chance to get ahead of other cities and regions and I am determined to see that new office work. I deeply regret that Cork narrowly voted against having a directly elected mayor.

When a vote is defeated narrowly, one sees many different things that could have been done differently or better that might have changed the result. One such thing would have been Deputy Micheál Martin actively campaigning for a yes vote.

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