Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Of course. I do not want to dwell on specific cases but I am familiar with a few cases and I just wanted to say this to be helpful. Public representatives here would know about this, particularly those who were councillors. With local authorities sometimes a person will make an application for a grant and the higher up in an office it goes the better the chance of it actually being dealt with face to face. I do not mean to be smart but I will make a suggestion. There are two cases, which I do not want to go into, but one thing struck me when I looked at them. Maybe some of this has been done already. Local authorities have somebody like a clerk of works, who is not a highly qualified individual. They generally come from the trades and are at the same level as the site foreman or whoever. Usually they come from the carpentry trade because they intervene at several stages in the development of any construction project and they are seen as having good all-round knowledge. One of the things that would be helpful is if a clerk of works, the preferred bidder and the client were able to meet on site. With the funding available, when people go on site and look at what is there, what the person needs and what is possible, they can join up the ends. We could argue about that in this room and Caranua could do so within its office structure. I am not being in any way disparaging about that. I am trying to be practical. I worked in construction, although I am not an expert in it, and I am a public representative. In my experience, if one gets a clerk of works, the client or constituent and whoever is doing the job on site, even if there is only a certain amount of money to do it, with 20 minutes or half an hour spent like that and a bit of tick-tacking for a week or so afterwards, the ends can be joined up. I ask that Ms Downes takes that point. I am saying it in a very helpful way. Perhaps the clerk of works or a technician could do that. It does not have to be someone highly qualified but someone who has a practical mind, who understands these things and is prepared to put on a pair of Wellington boots and go out on the site and meet the other two people.