There’s a fair amount of talk about directly elected Mayors for Cork and Dublin at the moment, would this just create an extra layer of bureaucracy? I do agree that local authorities have no real leadership: the cathaoirligh have no power and the county/city managers are unelected, but I don’t see how a directly elected mayor of Dublin would work, would he be above all the various councils in Dublin? How would he coordinate with them all? What would be the division of powers? 

But why are these problems unique to Cork and Dublin? Shouldn’t Longford and Leitrim get to have this local leadership as well?

I think the best solution might be to simply make the position of county/city manager a directly elected office in each of the existing local authority areas what do ye think?