Mr. Adrian Kane:

I will probably answer them in reverse. The ICTU made a submission at that stage. I did not see much mention of it in the final report, to be honest.

The CCPC report from 2018 ended up saying there should be a national regulator. That struck me as a strange conclusion to come to given what was contained in the report.

To come to the two other issues Deputy Bruton raised, namely, the legal element and the cost, we have taken advice from senior counsel on this. A test case was taken back in either 2009 or 2012 on the issue that a local authority was essentially setting the rules and then being an actor within those rules also. As I understand, that is basically what the case turned on. The issue here would be a local authority operating within a two-phase process. We need to get back to a situation where there is one provider for a local authority, as is the case everywhere else in the world. The only exception, literally, is here. Then, through public procurement rules, the tender is put out. That is how the competition principle is guarded and the local authority is not seen to undermine providers that are already in the market or doing anything that would inhibit their ability to do business. That, again, is a constitutional hook with regard to trying to inhibit somebody's ability to do business within the particular market.