Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 2 June 2016

Committee on Housing and Homelessness

Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and the County and City Management Association

10:30 am

Mr. Eugene Cummins:

I do not think it is a cause of duplication. It is the way business is done, the way accounts are presented and the way business cases are assessed. That is the system to which we work. We do not have a particular problem with it but we have to justify our decisions. It is not a matter of getting a blank cheque from the Department and going away and building houses. We cannot do that. We have to have approval, and indeed the Department would have to satisfy its own finance department in relation to agreeing costs.