Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On the directly elected mayor, a vote was taken and 51% were in favour and 49% against. I had my concerns at the start of this about the cost of a mayor for Limerick exceeding €500,000 per year. At the start, it was said the local authority would have to fund this, but now the Government is going to fund it for the first term. After that, I believe it is to come back out of the budget of the local authority. That is €500,000-plus coming out of a local authority's budget to have a mayor that was recently only to cost about €60,000. That is a fair increase to have a directly elected mayor. The powers of the mayor have also been well diluted. If we are to have a mayor of Limerick city and county, we would like them to have the necessary powers. At the housing committee the Minister of State said of the directly elected mayor that it was in the programme for Government, but the LNG terminals were also in the programme and the Government has done a bit of a U-turn on that, so things that are in the programme for Government do not always stand up.

As a Limerick person, I go with the majority of people who voted for this. I have to work with this and will be doing so for the people of Limerick who voted for it. I have major concerns about it, the costing of it and with the powers the mayor will have. Something I also raised with the Minister of State at the committee was the staffing of this and the staff a mayor is allowed choose him or herself, which he or she may choose from the council staff. Again, I have a major concern there. I am not saying the council staff would not be good enough, but if I was the mayor of Limerick I would like to have my own people around me. I could have one or two council staff, but I would like to have my own advisers and staff around me to make the difference I would like in my term in office.

Based on the housing strategy for Limerick and around the country, not only this Government but previous Governments going back decades have failed the people when it comes to infrastructure, especially in Limerick. I keep saying it in this Chamber. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, was in Limerick announcing houses being opened and we went around to five or six areas where houses were being announced. Every place we went around, I asked the Minister to ask the developer or contractors there how much capacity was left in the system and everyone said we are at maximum capacity and can build no more houses, until you come back towards the city. The Minister quickly realised over two thirds of County Limerick has no infrastructure. Work on a water supply has been started in Croom. It should have been the new pipeline coming from Limerick out to the village to supply the area, but the work only started yesterday. It was due to start more than 12 months ago, but due to contractors and the price increases, it did not.

I am glad to say the contractors are now on the ground and, I hope, in quarter 3 of next year, they will have a good and uninterrupted water supply for Croom. There was a fire in Croom a few months ago and a couple of houses were destroyed. The fire service did not have a water supply adequate to tackle those fires. It had loads of engines but it had to scutter to get a supply of water because it did not have sufficient pressure in the water system.

A government is supposed to look after all of the country, urban and rural. This Government and previous Governments have only looked after infrastructure within certain sectors where they want to be. All areas within 15 km of Limerick city are looking for investment. The Government has left out Askeaton, which has been waiting for a sewerage update for 43 years. Glin has been neglected. The Government is now proposing that those areas will be brought on line. I could also mention Oola. I can keep going around the county. Dromcolliher is another affected area. For years, the Government has promised to invest in infrastructure for those places.

The Government has destroyed Dublin by overpopulating it. You cannot get in or out of Dublin. People from Dublin cannot move home because of the excessive prices. Everything has been moved into the cities, which means nobody from Dublin can return home. What are those people doing? They are leaving the country. As is happening in every other place around the country, people are leaving. If the Government had invested in infrastructure around this country, we could have rebuilt towns and villages to make them sustainable for schools, businesses and sports. Everything would have been sustainable, which, in turn, would have made the business case for a proper transport network. The Government instead decided to put money into urban areas and forgot about the rest of the country. That has been a failure of the Government to date. It has failed in that regard.

Elections are looming in the next 12 months or less. There will be local authority and European elections, and the way I am reading the situation, the general election will follow shortly afterwards. Some 32% of candidates, both TDs and councillors, from the Government parties will not be running again. The writing is on the wall. It saddens me to see that in a democratic country such as Ireland. People in this country have finally realised the Government has not been looking after all of Ireland. It has only looked after a certain network of people who think the Government is right. The Cabinet has been too urban and has forgotten about the rest of the country. It has forgotten about most of the SMEs in this country. Small businesses employ 51% of the people in this country. The Government forgot about the parishes, villages and towns. It forgot about investment. If it had a proper business plan, the Government would represent all of Ireland but it has been overly city-based and has destroyed the country for everyone, including those in the cities. The Government has destroyed the cities through overpopulation. It has driven inflation through the roof and has forgotten about the people who put it where it is.

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