John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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No, they are not being replaced. In response to the question from Deputy Ó Laoghaire, what we are talking about is the transfer of staff from the county council to the city council. Originally, most of the emphasis was placed on the county council being the authority that was giving up staff and the city council was going to examine its staffing requirements to deal with the transfer of population. It has become apparent at various stages in this process that if we can get agreement between the local authorities themselves it is probably the best way to approach it. The purpose of the amendments is to place more emphasis on the fact that we are allowing them to come to their own decisions. What we have found in this process now that the discussions are getting into the nitty-gritty is that there is a lot more agreement than might have originally been expected given some of the comments that were made when the boundary maps were produced. We want to place the greatest possible emphasis in the legislation on allowing the Cork authorities to come to their own agreement, but we still retain various measures that I have discussed such that the Minister can ultimately become involved if there is not agreement.