Mr. John McCarthy:

Certainly Deputy, I will look at the correspondence. I am broadly familiar with the case to which Deputy Harris refers but, I must confess, not in a detailed way. I will come back to the Deputy on it.

On the broader question, local authority related issues which are raised with the Department can be many and varied. Some would relate to individual planning cases and the Department is specifically precluded, under law, from getting involved in such cases. If financial issues are raised, we would explore whether they should be referred to the Local Government Audit Service, LGAS, for further investigation. I am not sure, but I think in the case mentioned by the Deputy, there would have been an involvement by the LGAS at some point in time. Obviously, if other issues are raised with us that carried evidence of suggested criminality, then we would take the appropriate steps in dealing with those. Indeed, there may be other issues referred to the Department where accountability for them would rest with the local elected members themselves. In that context, we would point out the relevant statutory provisions. The Local Government (Reform) Act of 2014 contains a number of provisions which strengthen the oversight role of elected members at local level. Having said all that, I will come back to the Deputy on the specific case raised.