Mayoral Election Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-03 ============================================================ Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister of State here again and thank him for coming to the House to address my Commencement matter. It asks for the Minister to confirm the nature of the Government's proposed review of legislation that established the electoral mayoralty of Limerick, and to make a statement on same. To give the Minister of State a bit of background, I say that because there has been a lot of commentary about the Mayor of Limerick. It is also important to make the point at the very outset that on 24 May 2019, voters in Limerick approved a plebiscite supporting the creation of a directly elected mayor with executive functions for Limerick City and County Councils. That was a historic vote and day in local democracy and local government, and for Limerick because Limerick was, after all, the first in Ireland to approve a mayor with executive powers, initiating a process of legislation, reform and implementation. I salute the Mayor, John Moran, a man of vast expertise and experience. He will say himself, as do the city and county councillors of Limerick, that there were always going to be challenges and difficulties. When you map out and scope out a vision and plan for local government, we cannot compare ourselves with any other local government structure or form across Europe. Of course, the long question always remains around us never having local government if we do not devolve powers from central government. We have, effectively, a local administration and I think, having read, followed and engaged with the city and county councillors of Limerick - which I do extensively - there are challenges but nothing that cannot be overcome. I want to recognise the enormous work that John Moran, as Mayor, has done there. He could have been in many things. He was in the Department of Finance. He brings a vast wealth of experience plus commercial aspects to the job. The various issues that may be challenging are not insurmountable. They can be dealt with. John Moran went on to become the first directly elected Mayor for the county. Remember, he received 22.9% of the first preference votes and was, therefore, democratically elected Mayor of Limerick City and County Council in 2024. That is the background. We are now reading in the newspapers that the Government is going to carry out some sort of review. I welcome a review. I am sure the Mayor and the councillors welcome a review. Everyone welcomes a review. Over the past few days, we read that the Tánaiste was down in Cork and talked about the Minister of State's native city and the Cork city task force. This is great. We are going to see a task force on local government there, which is fantastic. We know Dublin city rejected the proposition of a directly elected mayor when it was put to it. That may be put to it again in another plebiscite or referendum. In the Dublin city task force, we talked about public services; community health; business and unions; arts, culture and tourism; private sector architecture; urban design; planning and all the things that go with local government and local democracy. It is an exciting time for local government. We know that this week, the national task force on local government already signed off on this report last week and will be delivering it to the Department and the Minister tomorrow - Wednesday. Let us be clear and let us not have any ambiguity. Of course, we look forward to discussing issues around that but that is for another day. Addressing this issue would be helpful for the people of Limerick and the staff of the city and county council. I acknowledge the director general of the council - he is the only director general of a local authority - and the challenges in his work. Wherever there is change and reform, with regard to the chief executive and the Mayor, there will be tensions and a bulwark for tensions but that is a good thing. It is not a bad thing so I would be interested in hearing what the Minister of State has to say. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-03/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-03