Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would be loath to call a vote on a motion to recommit something to committee but I have two reservations I want to outline to the Minister of State and to the House. The first concerns the subject matter of the proposed amendments for which the Bill is being recommitted. Do I understand correctly that those amendments have almost nothing to do with the mayor of Limerick? Did somebody do a tour of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and ask if there was anything anyone wanted to get rid of? Was it a sort of jumble sale? Did somebody ask if there was anything anyone wanted to get rid of? Did people say they had matters to tidy up? There is a way to make law. I say to the civil servants in the House that, just as we expect everyone to respect the Constitution, it is important the Civil Service does too. Increasingly, this is a Civil Service that, perhaps because Fine Gael has been in government for so long, seems to think it can be taken for granted. This is not how to make legislation. If something urgent needs to be done, that is fine, and we can bring in legislation overnight or tack something on to the end of a Bill that has already passed through Committee Stage. We can recommit legislation and do it that way if the matter is urgent. However, I have not heard the Minister of State describe any pressing urgency to explain why we are doing it this way, other than to imply, "Sure, who cares? It is nearly Christmas and, sure, legislation, my arse." There has been claptrap about 1916 and how we should celebrate being able to make laws for ourselves. If this is how we do it, it is not very impressive of the Department. However, if there are Ministers who are willing to go along with it, that is fine. Lucky for them. Perhaps we will not always have Ministers but we probably will have, the way things are going.

I acknowledge the considerable amount of progress that has been made on this Bill since the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, went into the Department, and the work his team has done to bring it to this point. It is important to acknowledge that an enormous amount of work has been done. It might be argued that a lot of work should have been done before that and one might question the delay in getting the legislation to this point. However, much work has been done and I congratulate the Minister of State for that. I acknowledge his commitment to delivering a directly elected mayor for the people of Limerick.

My other reservation also relates to the manner in which things are being done. We are told there will be a mayor of Limerick who will have executive powers. How executive will it be? There are certain powers that rest with the county managers as they were called, chief executives as they are now called, that will not be transferred to the new mayor of Limerick. It is appropriate that some powers will not be transferred, but there are a lot of them. Many are being introduced by amendment on Report Stage. We did not even discuss the powers that were being reserved on Committee Stage. The Minister of State and I were both present for Committee Stage and the explanatory memorandum did not set out what those powers were. I asked the Minister of State to compile a list, which he kindly did and provided to me. However, there is a whole load of new legislative proposals in the amendments submitted. If I am not mistaken, the Minister of State submitted 62 amendments, one of which is an amendment to the Schedule. There are 64 references to primary legislation and another 60-odd references to secondary legislation. It would be useful if we could set out what powers are referred to because otherwise it is difficult for the Dáil to debate them. It is, in fact, impossible for the Dáil to do so, given that those amendments were only submitted last Thursday and available to Deputies on Friday. There were a lot of them to consider before this week. I ask for that to be done and for some time to be allocated.

Nobody wants to filibuster and I accept that if a mayor of Limerick is to be elected at the next local elections, a Bill must pass through this House and the Upper House sooner rather than later so that preparations can take place. I accept that. Nevertheless, it is important we discuss the powers the mayor will have. There is no point in setting up the office of an elected mayor merely for the sake of it. The people were promised a mayor with executive powers. I accept the Minister of State's bona fides and congratulate him on the considerable amount of work he has put in. However, I also ask him and his civil servants to respect the House and give us the time to debate this legislation. I am not asking for time to filibuster or delay the Bill because that is not what I intend to do. However, there are questions that need to be asked, particularly about the príomh-chomhairleoir role, which seems to me extraordinary but is, nevertheless, being adopted. There is going to be a division of power between the director general, the speaker of the council, or príomh-chomhairleoir, and the new directly elected mayor. I have reservations about how it will work in practice as a result but I would like to tease out what is intended, how it will work and the rationale for some of the decisions to take away powers that the mayor of Limerick has as we speak from the new directly elected mayor. That raises questions and sufficient time should be provided to discuss them.

Perhaps now is the time to indicate that, under Standing Order 183, the Ceann Comhairle or committee chair - it does not explicitly refer to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle so I do not know if she has the power to do this - can direct that a new explanatory memorandum be provided.

That might take some time but a one-sentence list of what each statutory provision provides for would have been very useful and would still be very useful. I ask that one be provided in respect of the amendments the Minister of State is proposing to make. This practice of deeming all amendments tabled by the Minister to be passed and Report and Final Stages to be complete, with nobody debating anything, is not good. If there is a cock up then emergency legislation is brought through, in the way that the Minister of State is bringing this legislation now to fix previous cock ups. Out of curiosity, I wonder was the legislation brought through in the last week before Christmas. There was a particular tendency in the Department of the environment, local government and housing, which predates the Minister of State's arrival, to bring legislation through in the week before Christmas to avoid scrutiny. It is not a tendency of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell; it predates him but there has been a lot of it in the lifetime of this Dáil and it is not a good practice. It is not something to be encouraged and above all, it is not democratic because there is no discussion and nobody even knows what they are voting on. These are my reservations but in principle I do not have problem with a recommittal to Committee.

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