No system to create directly-elected mayor for Cork City and county together, Seanad told

Kinsale-based Senator Tim Lombard said the county should have one local authority which would represent around 12.5% of the country and would give it more power

During Thursday's session of the upper house, James Browne said that while the two individual councils in Cork could hold plebiscites on whether to establish the office, it would not be for the city and county. File photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

There is no mechanism to create the office of a directly-elected mayor for all of Cork, a government minister has told the Seanad.

During Thursday's session of the upper house, James Browne said that while the two individual councils in Cork could hold plebiscites on whether to establish the office, it would not be for the city and county.

Limerick will next week elect its first-ever directly-elected mayor, having narrowly passed a plebiscite in 2019. A similar vote in Cork City was defeated when 33,364 voted in favour and 34,347 voted against.

Raising the issue in the Seanad, Kinsale-based Senator Tim Lombard said he was "trying to start a debate about where we are with local government and what the national plan will be".

"I want to know what the Government's plan is for directly-elected mayors elsewhere in the country and whether Limerick is going to be an outlier whereby it will have a directly-elected mayor but we are not going to do anything in the other local authorities, whether in Wexford, Cork or wherever else," he said.

"Where is our national policy for directly-elected mayors and how are we going to look at the issue going forward? Is Limerick going to be a template or just an experiment?"

Mr Lombard said that "what happened five years ago in the context of Cork was a total mistake". He said the county should have one local authority which would represent around 12.5% of the country and would give it more power.

He added that Limerick "now has the potential to move ahead, which is great for Limerick", but said that Cork needs similar powers.

When I go to Páirc Uí Chaoimh to support Cork, I do not support the city player over the county player; I support Cork. 

"I just do not understand how we have got caught in this unfortunate dilemma that does not see a suitable structure to promote Cork county or city appropriately in local government. "

In response, junior Justice Minister James Browne said there are three ways a plebiscite could be held again.

These are where a local authority corporate policy group recommends it and the elected council approves it, where a petition is signed by more than 15% of the electorate, or where the Minister directs it. It must then be held within 12 months.

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Where the outcome of a plebiscite is in favour of a directly-elected mayor, the Act requires the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to submit a report to the Oireachtas within two years containing proposals for a directly-elected mayor of that administrative area.

"In the case of Cork, under these provisions, either or both of the two Cork local authorities could hold plebiscites for mayors in their own administrative area. However, these provisions do not allow for a plebiscite on the question of having a single directly-elected mayor of a geographic area that comprises more than one local authority area," Mr Browne said.