Government to support directly elected Dublin mayor

A report to be finalised for Government this week will come down strongly in favour of a single directly elected mayor of Dublin rather than one in each of its four local authority areas.

John Paul Phelan, the Minister of State for Local Government, is expected to receive the document, which examined the experience of elected mayors in major cities in other countries, by the end of the week.

The option was previously explored of creating a directly elected mayor for each council in the capital: Dublin City, Fingal, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and South Dublin.

However, according to informed sources, the senior department officials behind the report favour a single mayor for Dublin, elected every five years, with strong executive powers.

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All Opposition parties campaigned for such an outcome, but there was uncertainty over the Government’s position, especially when it became known that the option of four mayors was being examined. This was despite the views of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who favours a single elected mayor.

Plebiscite

The Government has made provision for a Dublin-wide plebiscite next October asking citizens of the capital if they approve of a directly elected mayor.

In 2014, government plans for a directly elected mayor foundered when councillors in Fingal voted against a plebiscite – with the approval of all four authorities required for the initiative to go ahead.

Meanwhile, Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy will on Tuesday seek Government approval to set up two boundary committees. He is expected to bring a memorandum to Cabinet looking to reduce the size of local electoral areas (LEAs) within councils. The territories for these areas were greatly increased ahead of the 2014 local elections, with eight-, nine- and 10-seaters created for the first time.

Mr Murphy and Mr Varadkar have said the changes were made to facilitate the Labour Party, which was in coalition with Fine Gael at the time. They ultimately helped smaller parties and Independents, particularly in urban areas.

Sparsely populated

The Government now wants to reduce the size of all LEAs to between five and seven seats, with provision for some even smaller three- and four-seaters in sparsely populated places.

The second committee has been tasked with looking at councils in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick.

It is being asked to create LEAs of between five and seven seats clustered around “urban villages” or focal points. It has been asked to avoid very large electoral areas.

The net result will be that some areas will be effectively halved in size from 10 seats to five. The consensus is that this will benefit bigger parties in urban areas.

The plan has been strongly opposed by the Independent Alliance who say it will lead to the exclusion of voices from smaller parties and from Independents. Its two Ministers at Cabinet, Shane Ross and Finian McGrath, are expected to object to the measures as proposed.