Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will not require seven minutes. I apologise that I was delayed at a meeting of the Committee on Public Accounts next door. I have not quite mastered the ability to be omnipresent in both meetings. Zoom gave me the option to do that for a while, but it is not possible physically.

I thank the witnesses for the detail in the submissions that have been made. It really assists the committee when we are scrutinising legislation. Not only do they bring their own particular observations and points of view on the work that they do and the challenges they face, but they also specifically address the legislation. In particular, the head-by-head commentary on the legislation was useful to me, particularly the clarification of the roles of the Minister, the local authority and other bodies. Having served on a local authority for more than ten years, I can see that when one leaves any sort of vague interpretation, things fall between the cracks. It is important that this does not happen on this issue. It is up to us now to go away, to take those observations and to ensure that they are included in our response to the legislation. We will endeavour to do that as best we can. I have not heard any principled arguments against points that the witnesses have made. That makes it all the more likely that we will include them. I thank them very much for their time and I apologise for not being able to engage further with them but it is because of the clash of the two meetings.