Mr. Joe McGrath:

Returning to a response to a previous question, as I said, an MOU is in place in respect of taking estates in charge. This approach has worked well in respect of estates served by public and other infrastructure. I mentioned that 122 estates in County Tipperary have been taken in charge. The difficulty is that a similar MOU is not in place for DPI estates. This is giving rise to the kind of situations we see today. In fairness, though, there is also a commitment within the framework agreement that there will be discussions at national level concerned with addressing this aspect.

The Chairman can correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that he tabled a parliamentary question on this and that the Minister responded by outlining that commitment and how it was being addressed. It is important for us to say that there is a bigger issue here. I take the Chairman's point that not all of those estates are up to the same standard as Rocksprings. It is very important for us to state that in terms of taking Rocksprings in charge, we are not putting issues in regard to Rocksprings as an obstacle and we are not putting the budget issue as an obstacle. The issue that needs to be overcome is the one we have been discussing here. We have proposed a solution, if we can get all of the parties together. I do not know if the Chairman was in the room when I committed to requesting a meeting with the Department and the other parties to this, and also to coming back in January or early February to give the committee an update by way of correspondence through the committee secretariat.