Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

On the capacity, the officials say they are dealing with local authorities. I will take two local authorities. Kerry has been in the news recently and there are a lot of good things happening there. If we look at Kerry and Meath, there are twice as many staff in Kerry as in Meath and there are 100,000 more people in Meath. There are historical reasons the staffing ratios are like that and I hope it will change at some point but there is not the same capacity around the country. Some of the local authorities are quite threadbare when it comes to staff numbers. When the officials talk about the local authorities, has there been any capacity review on the local authorities' ability to perform the function the Department is now requiring? I think this is the second time it has been announced.