Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)

I know that, as a Cork man, the Taoiseach will join me in saying how great Dublin city is, but as great as it is, we certainly have challenges, especially in the city centre. The task force report was an important way of identifying those challenges.

The challenge now will be delivering them. Within the Dublin City Council structure, there certainly seems to be the appetite to establish a dedicated vehicle to deal with the issues relating to derelict sites and also to fund improvements and additional services, for example, the business improvement district scheme which applies an additional levy on ratepayers in the city, something that Fianna Fáil introduced at the time. I am not opposed to a tourism levy and introducing legislation would allow the local authorities to decide whether they want to apply one. At this point we need certainty on funding for the task force. Whether that comes from central government or whether we are going to enable local government to raise the funding, one way or the other, funding is the crucial step needed to deliver the task force.

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