Mr. John McCarthy:

If we are talking about 40,000 units, it would come to somewhere between €800 million and €1.2 billion. Our relationship with local authorities is an issue which is raised with us quite a bit. If one goes back 20 years, virtually all significant local authority functions were carried out at central government level and were vested in what was then the Department of the Environment and Local Government. The landscape has changed significantly since then. Responsibility for roads was transferred to one Department, community development responsibilities were transferred to another and environment was transferred to yet another. To ensure we are clear in respect of our role, we do not instruct local authorities on what to do in respect of roads or energy. We do not have that responsibility. The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport looks after the roads programme and deals directly with local authorities in that regard. If I was to do as the Deputy suggests and instruct local authorities to do something in the energy space and tell them to seek money from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, it would not make sense. It would not achieve anything because I would be instructing local authorities to take an action in the energy space which I am not qualified or competent to ask them to do. That is why it is for the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment to roll this out. As I made clear at the start, at a general level we are very keen to see local authorities become a strong vehicle for dealing with a whole range of public functions at local level, but they have multiple relationships back to the centre, not just to us but to the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment and-----