Mr. Danny Owens:

Local authorities also receive a substantial part of their annual funding from a range of Departments and Government agencies which in 2016 amounted to €979 million or 24% of current income for local authorities. These central funds come from the local government fund and, as has already been outlined, the general-purpose grants previously payable out of the fund have been replaced by LPT allocations.

Most of the funding sourced from central government and provided to local authorities must be used for specified local authority services. For 2016, approximately 70% of the total provision from central government to local authorities was accounted for by two categories, namely, housing and urban regeneration programmes at 41% and transport at 29%.

While there has been an increase of 4% on central funds to local authorities in 2016, it should be noted that more than €141 million of this came from the capital element of the local property tax, LPT, which was additional funding to the current element of the LPT of €312 million given to local authorities in 2016. The overall 2016 LPT allocation to local authorities is €453.3 million. The association would contend that the LPT should not form part of the local government fund and, for better transparency reasons, should be a fund used for financing local services provided by local authorities as this was the original basis for its introduction in 2014.

Our final observation today is in relation to income from local goods and services delivered by local authorities. Income from these services amounted to €1.186 billion in 2016, or 30% of income for local authorities. Most of this income from goods and services is generated at local level and the association would advocate the need for a much higher level of control over financial resources, particularly at municipal district level to reverse the current situation of our members having minimal financial influence at municipal district level during the local authority budget process.

The Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, is currently engaging with the Department of Planning, Housing and Local Government in relation to the strengthening of municipal governance of the new local government structures and the AILG is committed that more control over the budgetary process at municipal district level will form part of this review to ensure greater transparency and accountability of income from local goods and services.