Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The issue of governance and how we can empower local authority members in this regard is important. I was a member of local authority when these audit reports came before it. We need to be looking at how we can empower councillors to have the ability to work through a process.

It is unfair on local authority members, however, to expect them to scrutinise their chief executives. The Houses of the Oireachtas should have that power. The Committee of Public Accounts should have the power to bring local authority executives and management before it to question them on their ability and where funding has gone. That is a hole in our local authority governance structure.