Mr. Paul Lemass:

Very briefly, there are two points about local authorities purchasing landbanks and servicing debt, I appreciate there is a significant amount of debt associated with landbanks. Our understanding is that if a loan was raised against a landbank, that would have to have been approved by the elected members of the council and that is the process in place.

I am not in a position to comment on housing policy, dealing with the debt and the LAGS process. It is specific to housing policy. I would, however, like to pick up on one of the points Ms Larkin has made about the overview report. The Department also takes the overview report very seriously and picks up on the issues raised in it, specifically the procurement issue that the Deputy mentioned. The Department has supported this sector in setting up a local government strategic procurement centre which works in areas such as the development, implementation, regulation and measurement of the Government's procurement programme in the local government sector. As a result, we now have a procurement officer in place in each local authority. The strategic procurement centre provides regular training on national procurement regulations. It monitors compliance with those. We now have local authority corporate procurement plans in place in 27 out of 31 local authorities and the remaining four are being finalised.