Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Lord Mayor to the House. I can understand the reason Senator Mac Conghail and others would wish to amend the Bill on a very important issue which the Government supports. Regrettably, the manner in which the forum came to its conclusion did not include a consensus from all four local authorities in the Dublin region. Local elected members are close to the people and understand the people better than anyone. They were given the opportunity to bring forward a consensus through this forum and failed to do so. They failed to get agreement from the four local authorities. I will not hold a plebiscite on 23 May 2014 but I will look at the situation immediately after the elections to see if the proposals which the local authorities did not agree to can be revised. The Government is very committed to the notion of a directly-elected mayor of Dublin but it is back to us to come up with an initiative because the democratically-elected people in the four local authorities were unable to reach a consensus.