Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I understand what the Minister is saying, and we will certainly take advantage of that. However, what is required is bigger than what this amending legislation for the Valuation Office is proposing. It is a bigger issue than that.

There are also proposals, as the Minister is aware, to amalgamate the Valuation Office with Ordnance Survey Ireland and the Property Registration Authority. The new body would not be under the Minister's Department any more. When a new amalgamated agency is set up, the first year is spent setting up the new board, corporate governance, and the new chief executive. In the second year all the senior management who got jobs will be interviewing people for the ranks below them. It is a simple fact of life that every time a new organisation is set up, in the first two years a lot of the energy goes on setting up the structure of the staff and governance. That in itself is going to lead to delays in what the Minister hopes will be a relatively speedy operation. I do not think it is a speedy operation in the first place. Setting up the new agency might be an opportunity to take an entirely fresh look at the self-assessment situation. I will go into it in further detail during the passage of the legislation through the House.

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