Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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Before I call on Senator Lombard, I welcome Maebh Doyle to the Public Gallery. Maebh is a transition year student from Bandon, County Cork, who is spending this week with Senator Lombard. I sincerely hope she is having a good week in Leinster House and that she sees how hard politicians work and how democracy operates. I also hope she will choose politics as a career because, in spite of everything, it is a great career and you can achieve so much. She is very welcome and please God we will see her back here soon.

Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Chair and acknowledge his kind words to Maebh Doyle. I would like the Minister for local government and heritage to make a statement regarding the plans for a directly elected mayor for Cork city and county. I am trying to start a debate about where we are with local government and what the national plan will be. On 7 June, a few days from now, Limerick will go to the polls to choose a directly elected mayor, which will be a unique statement for democracy in Ireland in so many ways. He or she will have a new function, a new office, new powers and a budget, and it will in many ways change how Limerick is going to be promoted and looked on. As positive as that is for Limerick, I want to know what the Government's plan is for directly elected mayors elsewhere in the country and whether Limerick is going to be an outlier whereby it will have a directly elected mayor but we are not going to do anything in the other local authority areas, whether in Wexford, Cork or wherever. Where is our national policy for directly elected mayors and how are we going to look at the issue going forward? Is Limerick going to be a template or is it just an experiment?

I am fundamentally of the view that what happened five years ago in the context of Cork was a total mistake. We should have one local authority in Cork, and if geographically between 12.5% and 13% of the nation were covered by one local authority, with a population heading towards 600,000 people, that would give it a unique power in the context of calls for funding, looking for international investment and how we would be looked at nationally or even internationally. We are behind the curve among regions in Ireland. Limerick now has the potential to move ahead, which is great for Limerick, but from a national point of view, we need to have a policy that will be appropriate to regions throughout Ireland, whether Galway, Limerick, Wexford or elsewhere, and I do not know whether that national policy is there at the moment. I acknowledge that we are coming to the end of a local government cycle and that nothing will be done in the next few weeks, but for the next five years, a plan needs to be put in place for our vision for local government, where we are going to go with the idea of directly elected mayors and what we are going to propose for regions.

I fundamentally believe that what happened in Cork was wrong. I read in the newspapers that there was fighting over the compensation package that was agreed in respect of the most recent boundary extension. A sum of €13 million has to go from Cork city to Cork county, and the city is now saying it cannot afford to pay it. This is daft. It makes no sense at all. That is going to do nothing for the Cork region. When I go to Páirc Uí Chaoimh to support Cork, I do not support the city player over the county player; I support Cork. I just do not understand how we have got caught in this unfortunate dilemma that does not see a suitable structure to promote Cork county or city appropriately in local government. My focus for the next five years is on what the strategy will be and how we are going to fix this issue to make sure that the Limerick dynamic can be looked at as a template to move forward in order that we can have it in all our major cities and regions such that they will all be on a level playing field. At the moment, Limerick is at least five years ahead of us, and having a directly elected mayor will give Limerick the potential to have an extra voice when it comes to attracting investment.

The real question for the Government, although it may be one more for the next Government than for this one, relates to how we are going to have a coherent local government policy that will promote the regions that need to be promoted and be a counterbalance to Dublin. What is the Department's view? Where is it going to go and how will it bring forward a new plan to make sure local government is what it says on the tin, that is, government for local people on the ground?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Senator for raising this issue relating to the process of introducing a directly elected mayor for Cork city and county. The forthcoming direct election of a mayor of Limerick on 7 June is one of the biggest reforms of local government since the foundation of the State. The Local Government (Mayor of Limerick) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2024 was signed into law on 6 March 2024 and gives effect to the plebiscite of May 2019, where the people of Limerick voted to have a directly elected mayor. Plebiscites held at the same time on the question of introducing directly elected mayors of Cork City Council and Waterford City and Council were narrowly defeated. In addition to providing for a mayor of Limerick, the Local Government (Mayor of Limerick) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2024 makes provision for other local authorities to hold a plebiscite on the question of whether to have a directly elected mayor with executive functions for their administrative area.

A plebiscite of the electors of an administrative area may be proposed in three ways, namely where a local authority corporate policy group recommends it and the elected council approves it, where a petition is signed by more than 15% of the electorate and the chief executive certifies it, or where the Minister directs it. It must then be held within 12 months. Where the outcome of a plebiscite is in favour of a directly elected mayor, the Act requires the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to submit a report to the Oireachtas within two years containing proposals for legislative measures to provide for a directly elected mayor of that administrative area. These enabling provisions of the Act have been commenced and supporting regulations for holding plebiscites will follow in due course. It is important that there be options locally for triggering a plebiscite, and the design of the legislation aims at strengthening local democracy and subsidiarity by offering these options.

In the case of Cork, under these provisions, either or both of the two Cork local authorities could hold plebiscites for mayors in their own administrative area. However, these provisions do not allow for a plebiscite on the question of having a single directly elected mayor of a geographic area that comprises more than one local authority area.

Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the response, which gave us the Department's view on the policy, but I would argue there is a political element here that will be looked at when the new Government is put in place in the next 12 months. When it is formed, that Government will have to have a vision for local government and will have to acknowledge what Limerick has done is potentially the way forward and that we need to move into a different space to make sure this will happen at a national level in all our cities. If that were to happen and if we were to change our focus in respect of local government, we would have real change in the powers regarding local democracy on the ground.

For Cork, it does not make sense for two local authorities to be fighting over boundaries, compensation and so on. It is all about trying to promote Cork and the region.We read in the newspapers that they are arguing about compensation packages. That does nothing to help me in trying to promote Cork as an entity. It is a political issue in many ways. Civil servants will give us the response but the political response is going to come when we form the new Government and decide how we are going to focus on local government itself.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I again thank Senator Lombard for his insightful and important question on directly elected mayors, in particular for Cork city and county. An information leaflet on the election of the mayor was recently delivered to every home in Limerick and explains the many benefits for Limerick which may apply in regard to the directly elected mayor. I understand the Senator's point, which is beyond the answer I have given, which just sets out the current law. There is a more political question to be answered and I will certainly raise that with the Minister.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State. The experience of democracy we are going to see in Limerick in the next couple of weeks will be very interesting. Once it is over the line and we see the Mayor of Limerick in operation and that person fulfilling his or her mandate, every county will want a directly elected mayor. I thank Senator Lombard.