Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Ó Broin has probably mentioned most of the issues. I thank the witnesses for the presentations. Ultimately, money has been allocated by the Government and it simply is not being spent. We must find out why. The Minister is setting up the expert group to examine how we can address this as we move forward. I am not trying to be political but several reports have been promised. We are waiting over a year for reports that we thought we would have by now. Will the Minister of State give a commitment that he will deliver the report of the new expert group in the summer, because other reports for this committee have slipped back?

With regard to the lack of spend, do we know if there is a continuing trend of local authorities not spending the money? It all goes back to planning permission. Do we have an understanding as to whether it is the executives or the public representatives who are preventing the planning permission decisions being made?

I welcome the Minister's engagement on the terms of reference for this panel. Will he allow the committee to make suggestions for the terms of reference? Given what Deputy Ó Broin has said, we have to be realistic with this. If the local authorities are not willing to make the decisions, somebody else will have to make them. That is a regrettable situation that nobody wishes to see. Nobody wishes to see powers taken away from local authorities, but historically they have failed to deal with certain issues because they were too controversial. In the case of waste, that power was taken away from them. Similarly, if local authorities are not prepared to make the hard decisions with regard to Traveller accommodation we will have to find other ways of doing it and we will have to consider that option.