Labour wants Dublin mayor despite Fingal setback

The Labour Party is to revive plans for a directly elected mayor of Dublin in its local government manifesto to be published in the coming weeks.

Dubliners were to vote on May 23rd on whether to have an elected mayor for the capital, but councillors in Fingal this week vetoed the holding of the plebiscite.

The support of at least half the councillors in each Dublin local authority had been required for the vote, which was scheduled for the same day as the local and European elections, to go ahead. The overwhelming majority of councillors in Dublin City, South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown were in favour of the plebiscite, but only six out of 24 Fingal councillors voted Yes.

Momentum
Dublin Labour MEP Emer Costello said her party did not intend to let the momentum that had built up around the prospect of having a mayor for the Dublin region die.

“The Labour Party continues to support the concept of a directly elected mayor for Dublin, which will be included in our local government manifesto to be published in the coming weeks.”

Ms Costello is proposing the establishment of a “Convention for Dublin”, which would be similar to the constitutional convention, but would have a membership composed of newly elected Dublin councillors and Dublin residents.

“Arising from Monday’s decision by Fingal councillors not to support a plebiscite on a Dublin mayor, it is clear that there needs to be greater interaction between the members of the four authorities,” she said.

“Rather than simply abandon the proposal in response to Monday’s vote, and recognising that the overwhelming majority of councillors on the four local authorities combined favoured giving people a vote on the issue, I believe we should capitalise on the success of the constitutional convention, and have our own convention for Dublin.”

Convention
The constitutional convention had been a template for a "citizen-led" reform, she said. Following this model, a convention for Dublin would allow for engagement between citizens, politicians, civil society groups and local business people. The convention would formulate the proposals that would then be put to a referendum of Dubliners, as opposed to the recent process which had only involved politicians.

“The convention would have a short and specific time-frame for meeting and reporting back on its terms of reference to the Department of the Environment. It would also seem an ideal time to establish the convention directly after the upcoming local and European elections.”

Ms Costello said Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan had put "unnecessary obstacles" in the way of allowing a public vote on the mayor by insisting councillors had to ratify the plebiscite. She added that she was "not 100 per cent sure" there was the political will in Fine Gael to establish the position.

However, Mr Hogan yesterday said he was disappointed by the outcome in Fingal.“I gave the public representatives in Dublin an opportunity through this process to come to a consensus – obviously that failed, but it’s a matter now for the new councils when they are elected after the 23rd of May to look at the situation again and I am supportive of the notion of a directly elected mayor in the future.”