Never a truer word, that shower of incompetents have wasted so much money it's unbelievable the NCH, PUP money for the world. Billions on asylum scammers, etc.
I would have thought the examples you have given are symptoms of an overly centralised bureaucracy.
The argument for directly elected Mayors is that it would have to go hand in hand with a strengthening of Local Government.
The office of Lord mayor as we know it today is ceremonial so it doesn't matter reallt who it is as.
The council's only power is approving the city/county development plan and approval of the budget. And the budget is limited in that they can move money from one line to another but can't seek additional money or anything like that.
The power today lies with the Chief Executive (Ann Doherty in the city) as they have the budget. There is a phoney executive/legislature separation of powers but she can make the decisions require to run the city and is only answerable to the minister for the environment.
At least with a DEM we could have a say in how our City/County is run. Right now even then the smallest planning or policy decisions require approval in Dublin. That makes no sense to me
We mightn't enjoy the outcome of that but we'd only have ourselves to blame