Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the two delegations: Mr. Kelly, Mr. Shevlin and Mr. Gilligan from Mayo, and Mr. Mahon, whom I know originally as a member of Mayo County Council, and Mr. Brannigan from Longford.

I have a number of questions. I will continue on from where the Chair left off in respect of an over-bureaucratic system and getting a handle on it. I refer to the 11 additional staff for Mayo County Council who have been funded by the Department, and I think Longford County Council said that it was getting nine additional staff. How is that decided? Is it decided on the basis of the number of houses the council is to build over the next five or six years? Who decides that a council needs 11 additional staff or seven additional staff or maybe no additional staff? I remember when I became a member of Mayo County Council first, which is going back quite a while, that a small number of local authority staff looked after housing, loans, renting and whatever else. Mayo County Council is to build, I think, 1,000 houses up to the end of 2026, 90 of which it has built already. I would think 11 additional staff on top of the staff who are there already is a quite sizeable number. How is that decided? Is it the Department that decides? We would just like to know as a committee and as legislators.