Mr. Tom Moylan:

To come back to two things that Senator Burke said about the drafting of amendments, I would take his and the Chairman's advice about what stage it is at in terms of the acceptance of amendments. If the points that we made in our submission were to be drafted into proposed specific amendments, we would have no problem sending them in and getting that done. Again, we would take the Members' advice on whether they can accept any more amendments and depending on how far it has gone.

In regard to the training of members on this new Bill, the AILG has a training remit under the 2014 local government reforms.

The representative body took on a training remit with our members. As I stated, we had a module on ethics and governance for our local authority members in 2015. We are to follow that up with another module once this legislation goes through. That is what we tentatively agreed with our line Department, the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government.

Local authorities have a training remit in respect of their elected members. If, however, our members are to be classified as category A public officials, their return will be straight to the commissioner. I envisage local authorities saying they have no role if the return is made straight to the commissioner and that, if one wants training or knowledge, one should talk to the commissioner. The local authorities might say they have no obligation. At present, returns are made to the local authority so help and support exist for elected members in making those returns. If our members were reclassified as category B public officials, the returns would still be to their body, which is their local authority. There would be internal help.

Senator Davitt referred to consultation. The first official correspondence we got from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was on 11 May 2017. We responded to that in a letter. I sent the details to the Chairman in September. We are very grateful for the opportunity to appear here today. I thank the Chairman and members for this.

The report was published in 2015. The first official correspondence we got was on 11 May 2017. I believe that was because the committee asked the Department officials directly whether they had consulted the councillors' representative bodies or the elected members themselves. At that stage, they said, "No". That is what we got our first correspondence on. We will follow up on the discussion today and send our submission to the officials. If amendment is required in following up, we will take the committee's advice on whether it is appropriate or still possible.