In autumn 2016, the Taoiseach said the following in a Dáil debate:

It is a great regret that the previous Government, of which I was a member, did not hold a plebiscite on the issue or allow people in Dublin to have a say on directly electing a mayor for the city.

He was in favour of the concept. In 2013, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, who is now the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, published a statement:

I'm a big supporter of having a directly elected Mayor for Dublin. There's a big democratic deficit at the moment in that the person who runs the city, the City Manager, is unelected and yet has all of the power and responsibility for the capital, whereas the Lord Mayor (elected by the Councillors) is largely a ceremonial role.

Late last year, the Dáil was told it was likely the Government would hold a plebiscite on the mayoral issue next autumn, around the time there might be a presidential election. It was also reported that in a report to Government, the Department had come out in favour of directly-elected mayoral system for Dublin and possibly Cork. I would add Limerick, Waterford and Galway as all our cities should have that sort of leadership.

This is not about an urban-rural divide. We all have rural and urban connections wherever we live in this country. It is not about Dublin versus the rest either. It seems the Government has a cunning plan at the moment whereby it will cripple Dublin with gridlock in an attempt to help the rest of the country develop. A planning proposal which involves being stuck in traffic for 75 minutes to get from Castleknock to Kildare Street every day is not a clever one. Things are worse around the country. Speaking for Dublin, the city is in crisis. Every other city is the same.

We need real leadership with a mandate to tackle the housing crisis. One cannot get that when one has four different city managers who are unelected and answer to no one but the mandarins in the Custom House and Merrion Street who run everything in this country. We need mayors to sort out the housing crisis and a transport crisis which is just as bad, if not worse, in Galway as it is in Dublin. We need someone to represent each of our cities and the enterprise culture we have to develop business and the economy in a co-ordinated way rather than according to a divided approach.

We need a mayor who has real power so we can develop the cultural life in our cities, as well as a mayor who can help to lead community development. Dublin Culture Connects is a fantastic example of bottom-up leadership that is happening but it will not work when it is controlled and led just by the Civil Service, rather than by elected officials.

Will the Taoiseach put this to the people? Will we have a plebiscite this autumn in order that we can introduce directly-elected mayors in our cities, starting in 2019? I do not believe he could introduce a plebiscite that would say to the people we are thinking of doing it six years later. Will he put it to the people? Will he live up to what he said numerous times in the Dáil and what the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, has also said, namely, they believe, like us, that a directly-elected mayor is needed? If we are going to do it, the Taoiseach must decide now so we can have the plebiscite in time. Is it going to happen?

I am and remain in favour of a directly-elected mayor for Dublin. I think the same logic applies to other cities as well, and even potentially to counties and other local authorities. That would involve a major transfer of power from county and city managers, or chief executives as they are now called, to somebody elected. That would be a very big change in the way our local government works. The relationship would be similar to that which exists between a Minister and a Secretary General, as opposed to all the power, or almost all the power, residing with the chief executive, as it does now. However, we need to be more definitive on what proposal we are actually making to people before we have a plebiscite. We have pencilled in a plebiscite for this autumn and the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, will bring proposals to Cabinet in the next few weeks.

I was very much against the proposals that were made by former Minister Gormley from Deputy Eamon Ryan's party because he proposed, essentially, to have a super-mayor who would be a mayor over the four existing local authorities in Dublin. Therefore, we would have the four existing local authorities all with their own chief executives, all with their own mayors, and then another super-mayor over that with very little power indeed. The last thing we need is another layer of bureaucracy in local government or between local government and national government.

I believe the exact role of an elected mayor needs to be fleshed out. The Deputy mentioned, for example, transport. Are we suggesting that Dublin Bus be transferred from national government to a Dublin executive mayor? How would it apply to the DART, for example, which runs on rail lines that also connect other parts of the country? What would happen with the housing budget and would it be a transfer from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government to that authority? If that mayor had an enterprise role, would the IDA and Enterprise Ireland cease to operate in the Dublin region or would there be some sort of double structure? Those things need to be fleshed out before we actually put a proposal to the people.

Realistically, if we look at what was done in London, for example, while I am not sure a plebiscite was held there, even after the decision was taken to establish a directly-elected mayor in London, it did not just happen six months later and they had a programme as to how that was done over time. There also is the question of revenue-raising powers and how any directly-elected mayor with no revenue-raising powers would be able to do any of the things the Deputy mentioned. Would the property tax go to the mayor's office? Would VAT collected in a particular city go to the mayor's office? All of those things need to be fleshed out and thought through and I do not think this had been done adequately yet.

The mayor has to have a real role. That Bill introduced by the former Minister, Mr. Gormley, gave real powers in the transport sector, over the planning system and in the enterprise and cultural sector in helping communities develop. That was done on a cross-party basis where we got agreement from all sorts of parties on the side. We got it through the Dáil and it was almost on its last stages in the Seanad before it was pulled because that Government fell. If the Taoiseach has some amendment to that or some additional powers, we will happily debate that here.

We put forward a very detailed Bill which said exactly how it could be done. The then Minister, Deputy Coveney, took it and said, "We will discuss it", and we have not heard a word back since. If the Taoiseach is to do it, if he is to be more than just stylish socks, if he is to be something of substance and not just a protector of the status quo, he needs to do this quickly. If we are to have the plebiscite in the autumn, he needs to be getting ready now. The Taoiseach may laugh about it. I was told it was going to Cabinet today but it obviously did not. It has been ready for months. I have been told it is the Taoiseach's own party, his own people, the same backbench people in other counties, who are saying, "We would not like that because it is pro-Dublin". If Dublin crashes because of gridlock and a lack of housing leadership, the Taoiseach will be responsible. If he does not get this agreed in the next couple of weeks and get it to the people in the autumn, we are going to suffer another five years with a lack accountability, leadership and trust in the people of this city and others to lead.

That is what the Government will be doing unless it turns this around quickly.

The Deputy and his party had several years in government to bring this about, but they did not do so.

We got it right through.

It is something the Government is working on now. No proposal was brought to Cabinet today. I have not had backbenchers from outside Dublin object to this, or at least they have not made objections to me. Proper consideration of how this would work and what the role would be is required. It may be that a directly-elected mayor for the city of Cork on the new city boundaries might work more logically than one for Dublin, particularly as the latter is divided among three local authorities. That would need to be fleshed out. Each of those four local authorities in Dublin, the "four Dublins" as they like to call themselves, is a housing and planning authority. Are we discussing stripping housing and planning functions away from Dublin City Council, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, South Dublin County Council and Fingal County Council and giving them to a new mayor? Will that mayor have all those powers vested in himself or herself or will there be another council elected between the mayor and those authorities? All that must be figured out. It was not properly figured out when the then Minister, John Gormley, put forward his proposals, which is why they never became a reality.

The Government has had seven years. Fine Gael is the status quo party.