Ms Oonagh Buckley:

The point is that the review of allowances is still in progress. As the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government was asked to do, it has gone through the business cases sent to it by every local authority, apparently thoroughly. It has done exactly what we asked it to do and evaluated the allowances relative to the criteria to be used in the review. It has forwarded a further group of business cases. The Secretary General has kindly and correctly stated we have not had the opportunity since these business cases were submitted to take the case conference approach that we have adopted in respect of all allowances. We intend to begin to go through them, possibly as soon as by the end of this week. At that point, we will reach our own conclusions, revert to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and do as we have done previously, that is, publish the business cases, numbers and so forth. We will update our figures. The committee is holding its hearings while the process is-----