Mr. Pat Montague:

-----in two parts. First, the programme for Government provides that there will be a regulatory unit set up in the Housing Agency to begin the process of regulating owners' management companies. The reason is that they already have expertise in-house in multi-unit developments, including somebody who was involved in the sector who is an apartment owner and has done a huge amount of work in a voluntary capacity and is now bringing that to bear in the Housing Agency. I certainly see a role for local authorities working in conjunction with the Housing Agency in the sense that it is important to have a national body co-ordinating all of the information, pulling it together and, more to the point, pulling together the learning from that. One of the reasons we are talking about, for instance, getting the annual financial accounts and why that is so important is to see the size of the hole in the sinking funds and to see how much is provided. I envisage a combined role between local authorities and the Housing Agency.