Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the amendments. The Minister gave us a clear signal in this regard on Second Stage and there was a general welcome for the property registration authority and the introduction of computerisation in this area. The Minister is correct in seeking to have all land registered, as a great deal of land is unregistered for various reasons. Tidying up the registration of land is a step in the right direction.

With regard to the composition of the property registration authority, I support the call by Senator Brian Hayes to consider the appointment of local authority members. Members of the Oireachtas are correctly barred from involvement but it would not be correct to bar county councillors. Different circumstances prevail and they often have local knowledge and experience of the issues involved, which would be a help. Somebody with an appreciation for customer service should also be appointed to the board of the new authority. One of the complaints in the past was that the performance of the Land Registry was not all that should be expected from a public body, although this was not justified in a number of instances.

There is nothing wrong with seeking to ensure the new authority should be self-funding but services provided by public bodies often do not observe the cost disciplines required to ensure the customer is charged fairly at the end of the day for the service he or she receives. A number of local authority sections performed extremely well in the past even when they were understaffed but others, which were overstaffed, did not provide an adequate, cost effective service, which they would have been able to provide in other circumstances. A safeguard, therefore, needs to be included to ensure the service is provided on a value for money basis. That should be applied throughout the public service.

It could be too easy for the chief executive and the authority to pass on costs, which they should not incur in the first place. I am not sure how the Minister could safeguard against that under this system, although I acknowledge that ministerial discretion will be exercised in the matter. However, many public bodies can make a case, which will, on the face of it, stack up but, when analysed, will not. For example, in the bad old days when public expenditure was totally out of control between 1982 and 1987, I proposed a saving of €100,000 out of a €30 million budget at a local authority meeting. I remember the response from the person in charge at the time was that the staff would encounter significant difficulties in providing the service given the conditions in which they were performing and that the situation would be almost tantamount to the service collapsing. The Government took steps the following year to correct the public finances, which has stood us in good stead, enabling us to get our fiscal responsibilities right and, as a consequence, helping to lay the foundations for greater economic growth.