Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I experience it from where I sit and in terms of value for money and costs of course we want adequate oversight. We are speaking about local authorities and people of integrity. I will come to auditing local authorities in a second. It is not rocket science that the cost per building we expect in Sligo is X per square metre which it might be different in Dublin. There are broad parameters that any good valuation house or quantity surveyor house could provide, so that if Ms Maguire tells the Department 150 houses are ready to be built in Navan, she is happy with the design scheme, provides the cost and states all the local authority needs is the money, the Department can cross-check it against the market through quantity surveying expertise and give the local authority the money so it can get on with it. We would get the same value for money.

This is not about policy. The policy is to build houses. I have read the four-stage process and I rolled around laughing. I do not know how a local authority sets about building anything. The expertise is available. We are not talking a national children's hospital level of complexity. People either have the expertise or not and most local authorities do. On-site quantity surveying and tendering expertise may not be there but for a relatively small cost it could be procured.

What metrics and analysis are there to show our four-stage process has saved us X, given X percentage better value for money or increased units or outturn? My sense is that with the best will in the world the four-stage process costs money, is bureaucratic, causes delay and certainly does not capture what we seem to be calling a national housing emergency. We either trust local authorities to do this or we do not. This might free up a lot of staff that heretofore have been very involved in the four-stage process. That is fine. We could create an enforcement division and let them go on tour to make sure everything is being done right throughout the country or pop into the local authority in Sligo or Leitrim to ask how everything is being done. The delivery of units, which is the policy and what we are all about, would be much better. It is just a suggestion.

The local authorities are not responsible to the Committee of Public Accounts. Mr. McCarthy is the accounting officer for local authorities and a large amount is given from the Department to local authorities. Is it correct that the Department does not audit them?