Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

While I do not know when the Minister commenced the section to enable local authorities to establish audit committees, there was a long delay in so doing. Second, it was frustrated at local level by local authority management, who did not wish to see the establishment of audit committees before which a local government auditor could be called and questioned.

Section 122 of the Local Government Act provided for the equivalent of the Committee of Public Accounts to operate in local authorities. It is a great pity Members lack the time to work through the Minister's amendment, which does not appear to strengthen this position at all. If anything, it weakens the role of audit committees in local authorities. At present, section 122 allows for the local government auditor to be brought before the committee in the same manner in which the Comptroller and Auditor General attends the Committee of Public Accounts. The latter is questioned, makes a report, explains what the audit means and so on.

There are similar powers enabling the audit committee to bring before it council management and to have them questioned. However, the Minister is replacing these provisions with a formula in which there will be a council committee that can discuss all kinds of matters, can review financial and budgetary reporting and foster the development of best practice. However, it will have no teeth whereas the current section 122, if it was allowed to operate, does so. If anything, the new formula proposed by the Minister, which he has touted in the media as representing a strengthening of financial accountability in local authorities, appears to be weakening its potential. I use the term "potential" because I am conscious the audit committee idea never really got up and running in local authorities, as it should have. The Minister's amendment weakens rather than strengthens it. I would like to see it strengthened and made effective and really operational.

As far as the principle of this Bill in terms of the establishment of the business improvement districts is concerned, I can see the logic of what is being done with rates and valuations. I have my doubts, which I have expressed, about the amendment on the audit committees that the Minister intends to propose. I have no difficulty with the general thrust of the Bill and if this were a Second Stage debate in the normal sense, I would support it. Unfortunately, we are being deprived of the opportunity to give the Bill the detailed scrutiny it needs and deserves. The Minister is unwise in rushing this Bill through the House when there would have been general goodwill towards it and a general willingness to see it enacted, but also to have it properly considered, scrutinised and evaluated line by line.

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