Mr. Aidan O'Connor:

I will come to that question. I do not accept priority should be given to the areas that will be taken into public control. That is looking at the issue in cost terms. Cost is a good driver in focusing people's attention, but the council is dealing with regulations so they should take a sample across the range.

Deputy Murphy asked about the mix of inspections. I think that may be part of the problem. The council provided figures to the local government section of the Department to establish whether they met the 15% rate of inspection; however, when one looks into it further, what they inspected was never defined. There was a lack of definition of inspections. One would need to trawl through the various sections of the local authority to see what each did. The fire officer may have looked at one element while the building control section might have considered the needs of people with disabilities, but they never followed a comprehensive list. We are still without that basic data. We are making an effort to try to get the data and separate it so that one knows the mix covered in the inspections. I know it seems the Deputy has asked a simple question, but it is vitally important to know what was actually looked at. Often inspections are recorded by either number or by date but not by what was inspected.