Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I suggest that it would be in the interests of the approved housing bodies to produce figures for the staff dealing with housing and accommodation and those that are dealing with disability or elderly service provision. When a single figure gets thrown around, people say that the approved housing body sector is an industry in itself. I have also heard from local authorities that when an AHB housing development is proposed, there might be one or two people from the local authority involved but that four or five people from the AHBs arrive into meetings in fine suits and cars. Various local authorities have said that to me in the last 12 months. Maybe they are not talking about the organisations represented here today but they have said to me that they cannot understand it when all of these suits arrive. They would argue that there is a complete imbalance in terms of the running of their housing department versus the various member organisations. The witnesses must have heard that criticism.