Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Connor, Deputy Catherine Murphy and the Chairman for agreeing to the suggestion. It is helpful that all of us are former members of local authorities because it will send out a signal that this is not about putting additional pressure on local authorities. This is about ensuring there is full accountability and transparency.

I understand what the Chairman has said. I was a member of an audit committee on a county council. It is a very different experience from being a member of this committee because, as the Chairman mentioned, councillors are essentially full-time people operating on a part-time basis in terms of remuneration. They do not have staff, advice or access to independent research and guidance as we do on this committee. In some cases, councillors deal with elaborate multi-annual budgets where funding streams come from several different sources. If they are dealing with, in some cases - it is a minority of cases but it does happen - officials who are reluctant or resistant to providing the information, local authority members simply do not have the wherewithal to get to the type of answers we would have on this committee.

We should operate on this and if we can agree to have an engagement, we should do so on an informal basis and on the basis of a constructive approach from this committee to ensure we can assist councillors and those staff and officials within local authorities in providing the public with the confidence, in this regard and in every other respect, that when taxpayers' money is spent, it is spent with full due diligence and the public interest at its heart.