Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is an interesting discussion. We must always welcome where there is an effort to reform or evaluate the performance of any organisation, especially local authorities. In a democratic country, local authorities are nearest to the citizen in terms of delivering local services, democracy and representation.

The idea of a directly elected mayor bodes well, and is something that interests me greatly. However, the practicality of electing a mayor directly and having clearly defined responsibilities and roles might not be as easy as we thought at first. Most of us in this House have served on local authorities, and we are very proud of what our elected councillors do. However, in recent years there has been an increased level of frustration. Councillors feel that the councils are becoming regulators, and they are just rubber-stamping development plans, budgets or strategies, rather than wielding real power to affect change in their local communities. That is a cause for concern. The Minister of State is taking action to try to address that by rebalancing those powers in favour of the elected council and a directly elected mayor. It is a genuine attempt to rebalance those powers in the local authority system.

Having said that, I still have reservations. We are only four months out from the local elections and four months from the plebiscite. I recognise that Senator Boyhan has circulated the Minister of State's speech to councillors around the country. It is important that councillors and representative organisations must be consulted on this; they will provide interesting feedback. I am sure there is also interesting feedback to be had from academics in the Institute of Public Administration as well, which looks at other countries and describes how successful directly elected mayors can be.

I have a concern about how this will actually work. There is either someone in authority at the top of the local government system - the CEO or the directly elected mayor - and I have a concern about who will call the shots. Who is accountable when things go right and when they go wrong? The system we have in place at the moment sees the CEO exercising a lot of power. Luckily, Ireland has many excellent CEOs. In Waterford City and County Council, Mr. Michael Walsh is seen as a very progressive CEO who is not afraid to take risks and who gets on with things. That has been recognised, and he has achieved a lot with that approach.

However, in other local authorities there are CEOs who may not be performing as well, but we are stuck with them. How accountable are they? The elected members of those councils can be exasperated in dealing with those CEOs. If we had directly elected mayors with real power and authority they would be accountable. If they are doing a bad job they have to stand up at the end of a five-year term and report progress or otherwise, and the electorate will hold them accountable. If they are doing a good job it will be recognised and they may be re-elected, and if they are doing a poor job I am sure they will be turfed out, along with any councillors not doing a good job either.

I recognise the need for reform and the need to rebalance power to those who are elected. We can do more in terms of the powers of councillors, but that is for another day. The Minister of State wants to hear views on directly elected mayors. I can speak about Waterford best because that is where I am from. We need elections not just for mayors for cities but rather the cities and counties. Waterford has a city and it is a very rural county, as the Minister of State knows. It is a coastal county and so faces many maritime issues. It also has issues with mountains. This is not just about urban life and how a mayor would address how a city develops. In this case we are talking about an entire county. The responsibilities and powers of that have to be taken into account as well. In an ideal world the mayor would have all the power. This is the case in other countries. This is a first step, and a series of steps might be required to get to that stage. If cities and counties are to develop in a coherent, strategic way, a mayor should have an input into issues such as public transport and policing strategies. However, the system we have in Ireland is more dispersed, and we have many organisations with responsibility for those areas. It will take a series of steps to get to that point. I understand that and I respect it, but feel that if we are going to go with a plebiscite in four months time we have to inform the electorate on what it is actually voting on, in a similar way to referendums.

We need to be careful not to confuse the electorate. The electorate in Waterford city and county is confused enough because we have a city and county mayor and a metropolitan mayor, both of whom often turn up at events, causing confusion even among hosting organisations that welcome and invite them. They wonder who the real mayor is and who the guy or girl with the top status is. We need to bring more clarity to that and perhaps this is an opportunity to do so.

As the Minister of State mentioned, a relationship similar to that between a Minister and the Secretary General of the relevant Department is the best bet. Electors may not understand that relationship but, as policymakers and politicians, we possibly understand it well. Our electors will not understand it, however, and we need clearer, concise language that citizens will understand about who the boss is and what the mayor does and is responsible for. For example, in conjunction with the elected council, will he or she be responsible for the council's budget and how it is spent? He or she will not be responsible for human resources and staffing, which is fair enough, and the Minister of State said the mayor will not be responsible for planning, but I have a different view in that regard.

CEOs and planners are currently responsible for planning and the individual decisions on planning applications, which I accept, but councillors are responsible for adopting the county development plans. To have authority, the mayor should have some power to plan the direction a city or county will take. Perhaps this is an example of the synergies to which Senator Boyhan referred, where there is a healthy tension among the CEO, the staff, the elected members and the mayor. There are examples to be found throughout the country where it is not always the case that the councillor has got it wrong but rather the planning staff in Departments can get it wrong. We need a healthy balance in that regard and a mayor should have some power to plan for the city and county. While it might not be a specific power to make decisions on planning applications, which I respect, the mayor should have a strong say on the direction, strategy and coherence of a development plan for a city and county if he or she is to be the respected person of authority with the power that is aspired to.

We have a way to go but I welcome the Minister of State's initiative. It is easy to leave matters alone and I acknowledge that he is not doing that but instead is trying to reform, evaluate and make matters better by giving more power and accountability to those democratically elected, for which he should be supported. Time might not be on his side but there is scope for more consultation and feedback from those already elected on how they feel about their current powers and how they could be improved. Let us learn from policymakers, councillors and academics. I hope the Government will produce a plebiscite that engages the public because it is important we do so rather than receiving only a half-response to the question of whether there should be directly elected mayors. I believe there should be, although the process needs to be developed a bit more, and perhaps this is the first step. I wish the Minister of State well in that endeavour.