Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I raise with the Leader the issue of directly-elected mayors. There was much discussion in recent days, and particularly at the weekend, about the Government's proposals on this matter. No one really knows the Government's proposals on it. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government and therefore I am aware that no primary legislation, or any legislation, has been presented and is not being discussed in any detail. There is no preparatory work relating to it. Someone just spun out of the air that we will have a plebiscite on the issue of directly-elected mayors in Waterford, Cork and Limerick.

It really does not matter what I think about directly-elected mayors but I can say, as someone who like many people in this Chamber has close contact with local elected members, that there are mixed views on it. The views vary from who will pay for it and whether it is correct to suggest, as has been suggested in the media, and that it could cost between €120,000 and €150,000 to pay for these mayors in those three locations if it were to happen at some future date. In that context, councillors are waiting months for the outcome of the review by Ms Moorhead, senior counsel, of local pay and conditions. It is obviously an issue that is exercising them. I predict on this day in this Chamber that unless there is a dramatic change in terms of the Government promoting this issue of elected mayors it will be defeated in Cork, Waterford and Limerick. That will be the outcome if there is not substantial change in terms of working through the possibilities but, more importantly, explaining the possibilities to the people. I was in Cork recently where I spoke to a number of elected people who said they do not understand the parameters of this issue.

I do not want to be negative because I see many possibilities in having mayors but I ask the Leader to use his good office to see how we can come together to crystalise this proposal and explain and promote it. We know there will not be a plebiscite in Galway. We know there will not be one in Dublin because it will be referred to a citizens' engagement process. We have different things for different parts of the country. On "Morning Ireland" today, there was mention that some Ministers and the Attorney General had serious concerns about this issue. There are many questions. I do not have the answers but I suggest it would be timely if we had a debate and a conversation in the House as to what the Government is actually proposing. Let us see some sort of a scheme underwritten in terms of what it is actually proposing because we need greater clarity across all the political parties and none in respect of this issue which is being put to the people in Waterford, Limerick and Cork on 24 May.