Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On implementation, fault lines are already apparent, as I said on Second Stage. There are wide variations throughout the country in the context of the positioning of local authority staff. To highlight the worst-case scenario, Meath County Council has a staff of 620 but is responsible for 20,000 more people than the combined authorities in Limerick, which have a total of 1,075 staff between them. Implementing this scheme will be quite a labour-intensive exercise and provision has not been made to transfer staff from the Department of Social Protection. I know this because I asked the relevant Minister and that is what I was told. From the point of view of logistics, it will not be possible to implement the scheme in the absence of sufficient staff. That is a major fault line. The authorities that are going to experience the most pressure are those in Dublin, Kildare and Cork.

There is a greater staff ratio on the western seaboard. It is essential that the Minister of State will have the ability to deal with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government regarding this embargo because it is a crude instrument. I would flag immediately that there will be a problem in the absence of that being dealt with.