FG to oppose Dublin mayoral elections

FINE GAEL will oppose plans to hold elections for a mayor of Dublin next year, the party’s environment and local government spokesman Phil Hogan has said.

Minister for the Environment John Gormley has said he intends to go ahead with plans for elections for Dublin’s first directly elected mayor in 2010.

However, he has yet to set a date for elections, or to publish the White Paper on the future of local government that will set out the details of the mayor’s role and the future role of the existing city manager and councillors.

Plans to hold an election next year were ill thought out and half-baked, Mr Hogan said.

“I want Dublin to have a lord mayor with real responsibilities, a real agenda and a real budget. Instead of giving Dublin this, John Gormley has put forward proposals for a Dublin lord mayor that are little more than half-baked and will fail miserably.”

Mr Gormley had not outlined any reform of local government and was instead establishing another layer of bureaucracy that was little more than a “vanity project”, Mr Hogan said.

“His determination to plough on with his ill thought out plan for a Dublin mayor must be viewed as a smokescreen to hide his complete absence of action in this area.”

Mr Gormley did announce last Budget day that he would establish a review of the efficiency, cost base, expenditure of and numbers employed in local authorities.

City manager John Tierney said he had yet to be given any details of what the mayoral election or the local government review would involve. However, he said the council would be demonstrating the efficiencies that had been achieved in recent years.