James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

Each local authority has a local government auditor, director of financial services, a budget committee, finance committees etc. and each committee needs a secretariat. Are the new committees necessary? As additional staff are required to man the secretariats, will the embargo on local government staffing be lifted to accommodate their staffing requirements?

The public wants a better delivery of services. As more committees have been established within the local government system, I question whether the Better Local Government programme is working. There may be too many directors of services in small local authorities. For example, an authority with a population of 35,000 may have as many directors as an authority serving a population of 250,000.

How often will the audit committees meet and will there be secretariats to support them? Are the committees necessary?

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