Mr. Robert Watt:

He supports the architecture put in place by the previous Minister, former Deputy Phil Hogan. He supports achieving more value for money and undertaking more assessments. I do not know whether there is a crossover from his views on town councils to the other, but he may clarify his comments. The Deputy can ask him at a future date what he had in mind. I can speculate on his motives for making the comments, but it is beyond my remit. We are still friends and I would like to keep it that way, as long as we can manage it. I do not see an issue in terms of the structures in place. The Chairman probed me on this question in the past and there were issues around the independence of the local government audit service within the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and whether it should be merged with the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General in a new office and the need for greater oversight in this space. I will support whatever mechanisms are required to ensure the achievement of value for money is pursued and that things are done properly. As the Deputy knows better than I do, the biggest reform introduced concerns how the vast majority of the money spent at local level is raised. Over time, presumably, this will lead to councillors having much more oversight of what is going on within local authorities because they will be saying to ratepayers and property holders that they are paying to them; therefore, they will have to account for it.