Plebiscite on directly elected lord mayor for Dublin expected in 2024

Dubliners are expected to get to vote on whether they want a directly elected mayor, in a plebiscite planned for the same day as the next European and local elections.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said the next citizens' assembly will examine the issue of government in Dublin "because we have an unusual arrangement with the four local authorities and four mayors".

He said they were “keen” to ensure the citizens’ convention happens next year “with a view to being able to put proposals to the people of all four Dublin local authorities in a plebiscite on the same day as the local and European elections in 2024”.

Mr Varadkar was responding in the Dáil to Fianna Fáil Dublin North West TD Paul McAuliffe, who said “there are many aspects of cultural, social and business life in Dublin that need stronger local government”.

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Limerick is to get a directly elected mayor with executive powers and a salary of €130,000, after voters in the city approved the proposal in a plebiscite in 2019.

Legislation to allow that to go ahead completed pre-legislative scrutiny on Tuesday but Mr McAuliffe said that law “would be utterly unsuitable for the Dublin area”.

He said Dublin had been promised a directly elected mayor in the programme for Government and he asked when a convention would take place to get consensus on the issue.

He added that housing is one example of an area where the Government had “given all of the powers to local authorities, yet I do not see the ambition at local authority level to deliver”.