Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his considered response. Ultimately, there are 31 local authorities and 31 chief executives. People are beginning to question whether those chief executives are accountable to anyone. They are well remunerated for their responsible jobs, which they do exceptionally well, on the whole. We need greater scrutiny of the financial affairs of these authorities. The real issues here are independent scrutiny, financial stewardship and public confidence in the 31 local authorities. The people who elect local authority members and pay their taxes to those authorities want to see accountability and transparency in local government finances.

I would like to leave the Minister of State with two little messages. I ask him to look again at NOAC. I understand NOAC has just five staff members. It is under-resourced. Representatives of NOAC attended a meeting of the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government last week. I ask the Minister to examine this suggestion as a start. It is important. I have studied each of the 31 reports of the Local Government Audit Service. Certain themes recur in the qualified opinions in those reports year in and year out. The chief executives tend to reply to the service by noting the shortcomings that are highlighted in the reports and explaining that the financial structures of the local authorities do not have the necessary resources to carry out the extensive requests. I suggest that the officials in the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government who look at the annual local government audit reports every year need to say that this excuse is not good enough. It is unacceptable for local authorities to respond to something that has been a recurring theme for three years by trotting out the idea that they do not have the resources to address serious financial governance issues. I thank the Minister of State.