Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not think people were expecting that so much would be out of reach of the person they elect. Disempowering the mayor in this way is disempowering the people of Limerick. When they vote, they will be directly voting for a mayor and that mayor will have his or her hands tied by this Schedule. In a whole raft of areas, they will not be able to take action. We will be saying, "Sorry, that is none of your business."

I spoke previously about some of the areas, which are hotly debated. People will make decisions on who they vote for based on these kinds of areas, and Senator Gavan spoke very eloquently on the issue of waste management and waste municipalisation, potentially. They also include things like archaeological heritage and monuments within the city of Limerick.

It is important to draw attention to the fact there is an eight-page list of things that are excluded from the reach of the mayor but later in this debate, the Government will add a pile of other things. We may get to nine or ten pages because even more things are being put in the Schedule. There is obviously a huge fear centrally that there might be a mayor who would actually do something. The whole Derelict Sites Act will be moot. There could be a mayor who wanted to tackle dereliction. All of the regeneration legislation will go to the chief executive, in case there is a mayor who may want to tackle regeneration as part of his or her agenda.

I spoke about the animal welfare legislation. Let us be clear that the wildlife and the habitats legislation will also be out of reach. If we have a mayor with a vision and who goes to the public with a vision, which gets people in Limerick excited that they will be able to do something and not just be a figurehead cutting ribbons on whatever might be a Government policy already or whatever might happen to be in the 2040 plan already and that they will perhaps bring forward a new idea or look to a new way of delivering legislation - some of the legislation has not been very well-delivered by chief executives in the past - then we will disappoint people.

I just hate disappointing people on democracy. We need people to find democracy to be a satisfying, meaningful and substantial use of their time and energy. In that regard, the Schedule is a big elephant in the room and it is getting bigger as the Minister of State adds these other amendments. What is the process whereby if this Schedule turns out to be a problem, an item can be removed from it? My amendments propose that either by a plain majority or a two thirds majority, the council members should be able to take an item off that Schedule. If the Minister of State has another mechanism, I am very open to it but we need to have a mechanism that deals with this issue of the overreach on the Schedule.