On Friday's Déise Today, Damien was talking to the Minister of State, John Paul Phelan and also Declan Doocey who is the Mayor of 'Waterford City and Council Council'.
John Paul Phelan is an advocate for this new changed system of directly appointed mayors for the cities of Waterford, Cork and Limerick as he feels that this new position can bring about change for these cities and new business and financial gain for these areas.
However Declan Doocey, however, feels that the proposal for a directly elected mayor is "an awful insult" to him and the mayors before him. He feels that he or any other person that is elected as mayor can do the job that this new mayor will have to do. He challenged the notion that his job is easy by saying that "my job is very difficult as well, I don't just show up to public meetings".
It was put to Minister Phelan by Damien that "Councillor's don't like this, and some of them might go knocking on doors to say to not vote for this". John Paul Phelan agreed with this statement that he does see that happen. However, he says that "I will be on the streets and at public meetings to tell people exactly what is going on and what is going to happen".
You can listen to the full interview here!
https://soundcloud.com/wlrfmwaterford/deise-today-22nd-march-john-paul-phelan-and-declan-doocey-on-the-directly-elected-mayor?in=wlrfmwaterford/sets/deise-today-2019
Friday's version of Déise Today was packed full of discussion on a range of topics. We had Nicola Anderson, a reporter with 'The Irish Independent' with the latest evidence on the Patrick Quirke murder trial. We also had Gerry Arthurs, Lecturer in International Relations and Politics in WIT on about the Brexit negotiations that happened last night. Gavin Whelan also gave us an update on the local sport that is going to be happening over the weekend.
You can listen to the full episode here!
https://soundcloud.com/wlrfmwaterford/deise-today-22nd-march-2019
