Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for being with us. If I pop out after these questions, it is because I must be in the Dáil for other questions and not because the witnesses gave me an answer that was offensive in some way. I am pleased that the witnesses and those from the LGAS are with us today in the context of points that have arisen in two discussions, one of which took place at this committee and the other at the Committee of Public Accounts. I refer to accountability regarding public spending by local authorities. As a member of the Committee of Public Accounts, I am familiar with the processes of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General and its published opinions. I refer as well to the resources devoted by the Committee of Public Accounts to scrutinising spending by bodies responsible to the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

What concerns members of that committee, and what has also emerged from media coverage of the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General, is that it is not as clear whether the systems for auditing spending by local authorities are as robust. Scrutinising the audits might be a better way to put it. I was a member of Dublin City Council, DCC, local authority for more than ten years. I was not a member of the auditing committee of that local authority. I was going to preface that last sentence with "fortunately", because the auditing committee does fantastic work, including its internal and external members. Having seen what happens in the context of those bodies responsible to the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, and the level of scrutiny and resources available to undertake such scrutiny of audits in that regard, I refer to what happens at a local authority level. There is a great deal of concern that perhaps those audit committees at council level do not provide the same opportunity to scrutinise an audit. Especially for shared services, where a local authority might take the lead, it is more difficult for members of one local authority to be responsible for the auditing, or certainly for scrutinising the auditing, of something that has a much wider area of operation. Those members would not necessarily have the feedback from those communities. I think of examples such as the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE, or Dublin Fire Brigade, DFB. Someone in Kildare, for example, has little ability to scrutinise the areas covered by DFB. A better example might be Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council or South Dublin County Council. From a broad policy perspective, is this an aspect the witnesses have examined? Is it something they would be willing to look at? I ask that because both the committees I mentioned are extremely concerned about this area. Equally, however, we are not quite sure where we fit at a national level in this context and we do not wish to interfere with the remit of local government, because we do far too much of that in these Houses.