Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in. To pick up on Deputy Burke's point, there is a sense of relying on going back to best practice where there are variations between councils, as Ms O'Gorman mentioned, and coming together in the Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, and other places. There was mention of having one council speak to another about applying best practice. This highlights an ongoing concern for the committee about a failure of centralised control over these matters. We are talking about €94 million this year and €88 million last year. Those are large sums and just one element of local government performance and delivery of services.

My concern, as the committee notes, is there may be insufficient controls centrally in this regard. What is Mr. Doyle's role as Secretary General of the Department with the councils, for example? How does he follow up exactly that point where there is a different treatment in collecting rent? What is his follow-up with councils about that?