Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----in terms of a major financial problem arising. I take the Senator's point, but I am making the principal point in that regard.

What is encouraging is that the LPT issue is settling down. We have gone from having 15 or 16 local authorities reducing it to 11 for this year, and I hope we will have even fewer next year. I hope we will start to see a small number of local authorities making the decision to increase LPT when it makes sense for them to do so. I believe there are some local authorities who will do that this year. I can give a guarantee here today that we will not reduce funding coming from the national Exchequer as a result of that. If they increase the LPT, they will have extra money to spend. If they reduce LPT-----