Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is accepted. It is self-evident and an obvious thing for the Minister of State to say. We understand that point. The application of a d'Hondt system would have buttressed somebody who is an Independent, per the Minister of State's point. He talked about checks and balances but there still has to be a check and balance against a popularly elected mayor. I may have exaggerated the previous points I made with respect to the type of person that might emerge, but five years is a long mandate. If, after two years, the mayor takes on certain characteristics and becomes unpopular for all sorts of reasons, the amendments tabled by Sinn Féin and us in this regard provide those checks and balances. As I understand it, the recall mechanism, and perhaps the Minister of State will explain it further, is quite a difficult thing to do in a short space of time. I would have thought there would be a stage-gate process where the recall would be the absolute ultimate decision-maker, mechanism or tool that could be used but in advance of that, by having a check against the mayor, notwithstanding his or her mandate, the interests of the people are being guarded through directly elected councillors.

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