Mr James Clarke:

As there were not as many questions directed to me I will not be as long in dealing with the queries. The main issue and one upon which every member spoke today - nearly without exception - is the importance of local involvement and the local advisory boards. That is why we are here today, to talk about this issue and ensure it is retained. If it is lost, we are going to lose a huge asset. We will be left with people who are running the service from afar and who will not have the same interest in it. It would be very difficult to deal with it.

The issue of consultation has come up regularly with regard to CIB and MABS. We have continually complained about it. CIB's idea of consultation is to appoint a consultant who they send out to meet various MABS organisations.

One gets a report back from a consultant and more likely than not, there will be nothing in it. For example, the CIB employed Indecon to produce the last CIB strategic plan. We put a huge amount of work into the plan and met the Indecon people to present it. We gave them a paper. The person from Indecon asked us to send it to the CIB. I said that we were told to meet Indecon to consult and that Indecon would take the paper and include it. He said "oh, that's not the way it works" and told us that he was working for the CIB. That is what the CIB understands consultation to be and that is our continuous difficulty. I was a member of several of those steering groups and can tell the committee it has always been the same. The last group was weighted six to four in favour of the CIB. The proposal was made to introduce restructuring. The committee was picked by the chair of the board and each representative body was asked to appoint two people so there was six-four-nil game before one started. That was the reality and that was the way it was going to end. There would be no change because the people who had the issues would still have them but it did not make any difference.

It is very easy to blur the lines with regard to administration. The management of the company in which I am involved does all the administration. In response, the chair of the CIB talked about wasting time dealing with Revenue and company returns. MABS companies do not do that. The auditors appointed by MABS companies do all the paperwork in respect of Revenue returns, the Companies Registration Office and the Charities Regulatory Authority so no time is taken up. Where the time is taken up involves requests by the CIB for this, that and the other. Those requests must be answered and supplied on the basis of a spreadsheet because that is the best we have had on offer for the past seven years by the CIB. That is what staff time is taken up with - completing returns on a monthly basis about waiting times. I am not saying the CIB should not have this information but at least we should have a proper case management system. The CIB was tasked with providing the proper support to MABS to enable this to happen. That will continue to be the case. I can tell the committee there will be no reduction in the amount of work that the manager at local level will have to do. The quarterly returns are a simple process. They do not really work.

I do not buy the idea that there will not and cannot be change. We always accept that change can take place but change must be on the basis of an identified need for change and being satisfied that change will make a difference. This is where we are today. Unfortunately, if we have these eight regional companies, not only will MABS local companies and local volunteers lose any input into it, the Government will lose any input into it. It will be taken out of the Government's hands and will not be there. It will be for somebody to decide. I do not know where. If one goes around the country and ask the MABS companies, the Citizens Information Service, CIS, companies and the end users, one will find that nobody complains but still the CIB has a problem.

The Chairman and Senator Humphreys mentioned many great examples of strides made by the CIB in respect of dedicated money advisers and the court mentoring service - areas that are very important, as is the debt relief notice . What they might have forgotten to mention concerns MABS National Development Limited, which is a support company for MABS based in Blanchardstown. When CIB was given that responsibility, it handed it over to MABS National Development Limited and told it to look after it. MABS National Development Limited implemented every one of those items in conjunction with the companies. They were all streamlined out. There was not a single issue with any of those measures but it was MABS National Development Limited that did it. We love working with the CIB; it did the donkey work and fought with the Department for the moneys. If we can work together and are allowed to work together, it will work better. That is where it is.

The chair of the CIB has said that we are not the employers. I wish to God that someone would tell us that because we are facing a claim for an increase in wages from the Unite union and a claim in respect of sick pay entitlements and will shortly end up in the Workplace Relations Commission. It is not the three people sitting here today who are going to go there. We are going there to support their position. The committee must understand the hat we must wear. As we are limited in the funding we have, we cannot tell MABS staff that we will give them a 15% increase because we must talk to Ms Black, Ms Mangan and Mr. O'Connor. In that way, we work together. It is not as if we are at total war every day of the week. I am only saying that to keep that going, the CIB should put a little bit of effort into respecting - a word I do not like using lightly - what the volunteers do on the ground and the value of that volunteerism more.

The Chairman mentioned the letters from the Comptroller and Auditor General. I can tell the Chairman that the Comptroller and Auditor General has not yet audited a MABS company with the exception of MABS National Development Limited about three or four years ago. I am not sure where this information comes from. The chair of the CIB said that all community employment schemes are not funded by the Department of Social Protection. Who are they funded by? Of course, they are all funded entirely by the Department of Social Protection. The money comes directly from the Department to the companies to employ the people. They are not funded by the CIB.