Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and I thank all the witnesses for their presentations here today. Coming from a local authority background, only one and a half years ago, I feel the pain of the local authority members. Back in 2014 we envisaged that local democracy was returning through Putting People First but, as it turned out, it did not restore any local democracy around funding.

With regard to the 20% equalisation fund, nobody has mentioned what their views are on that or the justification for it. Do the witnesses believe that is the correct way to move forward on the LPT? Just before I left the membership of my local authority, people were looking for the LPT to be kept in each municipal district. This would have disadvantaged the weaker areas. The fundamental issue is the baseline figure we are all faced with. Are the witnesses from the CCMA and the AILG happy with the methodology used and the transparency around the calculation of the baseline? Is it open and transparent to everybody so a comparison can be made county by county? I have looked for this information and I have not got it.

Another critical matter that needs to be addressed is the adoption of the LPT and the budget. From a political point of view, this is an utter disaster. We are asked to make the tough decisions on the LPT in December while the budget does not come until six weeks later. The people who do not want to make the tough decisions can hide behind the LPT, and when it comes to the budget they claim the credit for the tough decision that was made. Moving forward, that has to be addressed. In today's environment, where figures are available almost immediately, I do not see why there is any need to differentiate the time difference between the two. I believe these figures could be merged together. Each local authority knows its revenue in September. They have it at the push of a button and they also know their costs at that time. I see one of the priorities as the harmonisation or merging of the LPT decision and the budget decision into one process.

Using that baseline, the other aspect of the LPT is that the Government is now controlling the extra, over and above, that some local authorities have available to them. This goes against the whole purpose of Putting People First. Local democracy has been removed, in theory, from 40% of the budget process in some counties. They have no say at all in this. This is an area we need to consider.

Turning to rates and commercial rates, as a ratepayer I could never understand the value for money I was getting. One of the reasons behind it was that the rates were the only available option left to the local authority members to balance the books at the end of the year. It did not matter what services the commercial rates sector was getting - A minus B equals C and we had to do the multiplier on that. When adopting the LPT, the local authority members are still left with that decision at budget time instead of bringing the two aspects together.

I want to discuss commercial rates and rental on housing in Wicklow. There is a difference between how both are presented to members. The write-offs for commercial rates are presented to members. In other words, one has the total rate bill, the write-off and a net income. The rental generated by housing was net of the write-off in Wicklow and, therefore, the process was presented differently. I always consider collection rates. I was surprised how high the collection rates were on social housing but that was because the write-off was never shown. Perhaps that is not the same in each county but that is how it was done in Wicklow.

The municipal district fund was the greatest cop-out ever because there was nothing left for municipal districts. I do not know how we will manage the matter going forward. If we are going to continue with municipal districts then we need to give them the powers to adopt their own budget of significance.

Turning to the effect the loss of water services has had on local authorities, some still have service level agreements in place but they will be watered down over a period. I still believe one is left with the pension liability for all of the staff.

In terms of outstanding balances for commercial water, are the organisations happy with the figures that have been derived from Irish Water? What is happening with the development levies that would have been collected by local authorities through water services but now go to Irish Water? Have the organisations any input into deciding where that will go into the future?

It is frustrating to see that only 39% of motor tax is spent at local authority level and the rest probably goes to Irish Water. However, that is an argument for another day.

I appreciate the exceptionally good work that has been done by the National Oversight and Audit Commission, NOAC, and thank it for all its reports. In fairness, NOAC has no teeth and no role in providing solutions, directing policy or anything. I mean no disrespect but it is a cop-out to have NOAC. If NOAC had teeth it would perform a different function. NOAC provides excellent report on rates collection but it does not take aim. What would NOAC do to change its situation?