Mr. Paul Lemass:

It was early in 2015. It was summarised and concluded early in 2016. It took a while to get through the whole process.

On some of the other points, I accept the point about strengthened budgetary powers at municipal district level. These are provided for in legislation. We would have some concerns that the draft budgetary plan at municipal district level is not working as well as it needs to. Likewise, once the budget is agreed, we would be keen to see the schedule of municipal district works working more actively.

The €30 million referenced in the paper is additional money. It would cost €30 million more. The kinds of functions that would end up being duplicated would include revenue collection, support to the local government auditor, training, HR, payroll, administration, support to elected councillors, legal services, compliance with the Official Languages Act, property interest register insurance issues, register of electors, organising local elections, procurement policy and freedom of information, FOI, requests. Each independent corporate entity would have to do all these corporate functions that are currently done by one central body.