John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I am following Senator Byrne and the Minister of State, both of whom are from the city where this will be implemented, I make my comments with that in mind. The concept of directly elected mayors is an excellent one. It is the way forward for local government. My vision for local government would be to see a directly elected mayor for every local authority, for example, Louth, Donegal and Meath county councils. My vision for Dublin would be to put the four local authorities aside and have a directly elected mayor for all of Dublin because the concept of a mayor and a mayoral office is universally recognised. The reason I think that would be a good thing is that chief executives and executives of councils, whether we like it or not, can do whatever they wish. They are not accountable to the Oireachtas. Nobody is asking chief executives why the housing list is always so long, why there have not been any transfers in the county for X amount of time or why the collection of rates has been notoriously poor in that local authority.

I was a councillor for six years, and many others in the Chamber were also councillors. In the legislation, the executive is officially beholden to the councillors. However, if one is a councillor it is very difficult to try to hold an executive together when it holds all the power to get things across the line for a councillor. It is very difficult to do that in the first place. This concept of having a directly elected mayor means we will elect someone for a five-year term on a manifesto and a platform of delivery that the person will have to deliver, as otherwise he or she will not be re-elected. That would speed up a huge number of projects and development because someone will be working to a definite timeline, one on which his or her political career is based, whereas a public servant is in place for as long as he or she wishes. In the case of the chief executive, it is seven years and a further seven years if the individual is reappointed.

When it comes to staff, the directly elected mayor should be backed up by somebody, a programme manager for example, or a person in the mayoral office. The Minister of State knows from his job, and I know it has been said previously about Ministers, that Civil Service staff may have their own defined agendas and views about things. They may be happy to run the clock down on a mayor and not initiate a project knowing that they could be gone in two years. We may not like it but that happens in some cases in Departments. Having a mayor personally hire staff increases the probability that some of the issues, policies and things the mayor want to get done get across the line.

Senator Moynihan raised an issue on housing and I have come across it before. It is deeply unfair that if someone on housing list for X number of years decides to move from Louth to Meath or Monaghan, or vice versa, or to one of the four local authorities in Dublin, he or she goes back to the start of the list.

I will raise another issue that is inherently unfair and I am interested in finding out if this is the case in other local authorities. It is something the Department should take the lead on. I will use Louth as an example. If I am on the housing list in County Louth for five years, every once in a while the council will do a review to see if I am still at the same address and still interested in being on the housing list. How does it do this? It sends a letter to the person and if he or she does not reply, his or her name will be wiped from the housing list within a period of time. On occasions, through appeals, I have been able to get people back on the housing list because I can prove or show whatever evidence. On other occasions, I have not been able to do so. It is the most awful thing in the world that somebody should lose time on a housing list for not replying to a letter, which it cannot be proven was delivered. A local authority cannot prove that a letter got to its definitive destination. It is the worst thing in the world that someone can lose all of this time they have been waiting on a housing list to get a home because he or she did not reply to one letter. I am interested in seeing a standard way of dealing with this across all local authorities. I wonder if other local authorities deal with this matter differently. If people are removed from a housing list after five years, for example, perhaps they would get three years back, or something like that. It should be something cohesive across all local authorities. That is an issue I am concerned about.

I love the concept of directly elected mayors. It is class. It is a really good idea and the future for local government in this country. I would have a directly elected mayor in every single local authority on this island. That is the way we should go. It works very well in some UK cities, while in others it does not. I accept that and we know what cities we are talking about. The concept of a directly appointed mayor, who then appoints councillors to cabinet positions to run major cities like Manchester and other cities - Liverpool is not a good example given what happened there - is really good. I would love to see that here. The people of this country should be able to directly elect mayors in local authorities to plan out the vision for local authorities. It should not be down to unelected chief executives to decide what way a county goes over a five- or six-year period.