Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

To be clear, nothing in these amendments will take any powers away from elected councillors. These amendments relate specifically to those powers that are given to the chief executive, now to be called the director general, and are reserved away from the mayor. I do not think the Minister's analogy works. We do not tend to pass legislation here that states "the Secretary General shall do this”, "the Secretary General shall do that" or “the Secretary General will decide how they feel about national monuments and be consulted”, for example. There are many policy and decision-making provisions within the Acts listed in this Schedule and they currently sit with the chief executive or the director general. In saying there is policy, of course the Minister does not hand-deliver each fine but in setting policy, it is the Minister who is mentioned in the legislation. It is the Minister who has the power and it is implemented by the secretariat. We do not give the secretariat the direct power whereas we have the exact opposite approach to local government and here, whereby the power is sitting with the secretariat, effectively. That is an issue. There is nothing about elected councillors here. This is specifically about which functions are being reserved for the director general, not the mayor. My amendment would explicitly allow for the transfer of functions not from councillors but the director general-chief executive to the mayor.

I regret that we cannot come to an agreement on this. I thank the Minister of State for his engagement, but my concerns remain. While the people voted for it, there certainly was not a ten-page Schedule with this level of exclusions attached on any ballot paper that people voted on.