Plan to elect mayors may face legal test

County councillors may initiate a High Court challenge to Government proposals for directly-elected mayors, the director of the General Council of County Councils, Mr Liam Kenny, said yesterday.

Addressing a conference on local government in Roscommon, Mr Kenny said that many of the 880 councillors in his association were concerned at the calibre of people who might be elected to mayoral posts when direct elections take place in 2004.

A number of councillors have argued that the post of mayor should be restricted to people with at least five years' service on a local authority.

Fears have been expressed by some councillors that single-issue, celebrity or amateur candidates could be elected in a popular vote.

At present, mayors or council chairs are elected by fellow councillors, who may select only one of their number.

The post of mayor is expected to carry a stipend in the region of at least €25,000 a year, which is similar to the rate now enjoyed by many existing council chairs or mayors of city or county councils.

The switch to directly-elected mayors is one of a number of reforms included in the Local Government Act 2001, which was introduced by the former minister for the environment and local government, Mr Noel Dempsey. The proposal has been consistently opposed by councillors, who recently lobbied the present Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen.

According to the chairman of the General Council of County Councils, Mr John Egan, "single-issue candidates might succeed on the basis of the emotive local issue of the day - for example, a protest over waste disposal or motorway building".

He added: "People might not realise that the plan is for the directly-elected mayor to have a five-year term during which issues well removed from election-day issues are bound to arise."

Mr Egan said that a delegation from the association had asked the Minister for the Environment to clarify his position on the direct election of mayors.

Mr Cullen is understood to have told the councillors that he would give them his views "within months".

The proposal for the direct election of mayors is one of the few high-profile schemes surviving from the former minister's local government reforms.

Plans to "rejuvenate" local authorities through a "scrappage" payment scheme for councillors did not greatly change the membership of the authorities. In addition, proposals to end the dual mandate by which a councillor may also serve as a TD were dropped after opposition from councillors and Independent TDs in the last Dáil.

As things stand, if the Minister decides to do nothing, the election of directly-elected mayors will occur automatically at the next local elections, which are due to be held in the summer of 2004.