Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Elected members of Dublin City Council were being asked on Monday of this week to approve in principle the section 85, which just starts the process rolling. However, they are completely blind in terms of the financing of this. The bit of the question which the Secretary General did not answer is whether elected members, in local authorities or here, will be able to know what that benchmark is. If the Secretary General were to come to me and say that it is €300,000 per unit, for example, to pluck a figure out of thin air, I would feel that it did not make a lot of sense and would not be so sure it would be an appropriate benchmark. The benchmark that is set will determine the value-for-money comparison outcome.

There is a difference between this and, for example, a design build operate in water treatment services, although I am not a big fan of those either. Local authorities have capacity and much experience and, if these units go ahead as the Secretary General is outlining, local authority estate management and anti-social behaviour teams will still be involved. Whoever lives in these units will be tenants of the local authority and the differential rent will be paid to the local authority. I would like to be able to know if it is value for money to have a private contractor provide the management and maintenance. It might well be. We might get economies of scale in the day-to-day maintenance of properties, which could be a really good thing. Will elected members get to know what that benchmark is before they are asked to fully sign up to this process?