Mr. Michael McCarthy:

Again, I am not trying to deflect but there is an issue with rates. It is clear from the reports that some local authorities are better than others at collecting rates. There might be a reason why that level might not be as high in other local authorities. It would be a matter for the Minister or the Government to decide that there will be one centralised target which all 31 local authorities will strive towards. In our scrutiny visits, we examine how a local authority is achieving an extraordinarily high collection rate. We examine if there is a particular methodology being deployed in that local authority and if so we try to take that idea and showcase it at our good practice seminar.