Mr. Michael McCarthy:

I thank the Senator for his contribution. I know he has been a strong supporter of local government and to be fair to him he has brought those issues to the floor of Seanad Éireann. He has given a unique insight into the operation of the local government sector across the 31 local authorities.

I will talk about this year's report and the capacity and resources and then my colleague, Ms Maloney, will talk about the rationale for the grouping of the local authorities and the issue of housing. To give a quick and short answer to the question on whether I am happy with the resources NOAC has, the answer is "Yes". I pay tribute to my predecessor in this role who started in 2014 when NOAC was created. It was a different Ireland, albeit it was only five years ago, in terms of how scarce resources were and the financial difficulties faced by the country at that stage.

In recent times, we have had an increase in capacity of the secretariat and I am satisfied that the Minister has provided resources for us. We rely on the various talents and skillsets of the members of the board, especially for the project-specific work undertaken by the subgroups. Much of that is done pro bonoby the members of our subgroups. We tend to do as much as we can with resources that are sufficient but also finite. I am therefore happy that a capacity and resource issue does not arise. Building up the profile is a significant challenge for us. It is to reflect the work that is being done in our interaction with local authorities, with the Department, with the Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, and with other stakeholders. Since my appointment last September, I am endeavouring to meet as many of those stakeholders as I can to ensure that we are doing what we can to extend that network and reflect the amount of work that is being done.

With regard to the question about ministerial requests for a post, the answer, in short, is "No". I suspect that may change in the future. I do not have any firm knowledge but I suspect it. It is prescribed in the Act. We are open for business in that context. The challenge in building the profile is always there. All our reports are published online. Significant work by a number of stakeholders goes into putting them together. The Senator will find in his own experience in Leinster House that when one produces a volume of work, it is sometimes largely neglected by some organs of society. I am not pointing a finger at anyone in particular but sometimes there might not be an appetite to ingest the news of the day in that report versus, for example, the topical current affairs issues that will always dominate the airwaves and print media.

Ms Maloney will address the rationale between the grouping of local authorities and the housing issue. Ms Maloney is a former chief executive and has extensive experience. She has contributed significantly to the work of the performance indicator report and the operations of NOAC as a whole.