Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Michael is very welcome, as are my two neighbours beside him, Donal and Maura Callery, who are very interested in agricultural matters as well. Michael could have a good conversation there.

I thank Senator Kevin Humphreys for raising this very important matter. This is the second time today that Noel Dempsey has been praised in my presence, so I had better be careful in what I say. As a former colleague, I have listened to him being talked about while at Meath County Council and again today. As he had some far-reaching views when it came to reform of local government with which most people would agree, the praise is rightly due.

With regard to today's discussion, I apologise that my colleague the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Simon Coveney, could not make it to the House today. I will take the debate on his behalf. A Programme for a Partnership Government includes a commitment to consider directly-elected mayors in cities as part of wider potential local government reform measures including greater devolution, smaller local electoral areas, municipal governments and supports for councillors. The programme states that having consulted widely with all relevant stakeholders, a report on all these issues will be prepared by the Minister by mid-2017 for the Government and the Oireachtas. Scoping work on the development of proposals to address the range of issues in the programme for Government is already being undertaken in the Department. This will identify the matters to be addressed in the report to be submitted by mid-2017. Decisions will be a matter for the Government and the Oireachtas, as appropriate, following consideration of the report. On the issue before the House today there are important arguments put forward for creating the office of a directly-elected mayor for Dublin. Before reaching a conclusion however, there are significant issues that must be addressed. Senator Humphreys has put across very well his own research on people's desire for this proposal. It is important that the matter should be addressed properly.

First and foremost it would be necessary to decide on a range of substantive statutory functions that might be assigned to a directly-elected mayor for Dublin. What would the directly-elected mayor be in charge of, what budgetary powers would he or she have and how will these functions impact on other public bodies at central and local government? It may well be right to make significant changes in governance for the benefit of the Dublin area, but we need to be very clear on what we are doing and why we are doing it. There is no point in creating an office with a weak or duplicated mandate that would make the ultimate goal of delivering better services for the citizen harder, not easier, to achieve. All aspects of the governance of the Dublin metropolitan area will need to be taken into account including questions around an overall regional authority, the relationship with the wider Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly, impacts on the existing Dublin authorities and the local area governance in the villages around the city and counties of Dublin. In addition, any proposal for a directly-elected mayor must have full regard to cost implications and staffing issues. Resources would be needed to support the performance of the statutory functions assigned to the mayor and to support the operation of the mayor's office.

The Minister will approach this issue in his planned report for Government and the Oireachtas on the basis of the benefits that have been identified with regard to the substantive functions to be performed by a mayor that improve public services for people living in and visiting the area, and whether these benefits outweigh the cost that would be involved. I thank Senator Humphreys again. It is an important debate to have and it is probably only warming up. I have no doubt we will be here again on this issue in the months ahead. The commitment is there. The Senator wanted a timeline and it is there; to bring the report to the Houses in mid-2017. This still gives enough time to implement it further after that.