Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. I want to discuss how information is presented to local authorities to provide a full understanding of the end of year financial statement. I wish people the best of luck in trying to relate an end of year financial statement to a budget book. We need to look at how the budget book is presented to councillors. In all fairness, trying to follow that budget book is an absolute nightmare for anybody who is interested. Issues I have encountered in my time in Wicklow include the lack of coherent policy for write-offs. For commercial rates, the total budget and income, write-off, net income and collection rate will be shown. The rental income from social housing would be presented in the budget book with the net after write-off, with the collection rate. Key policy decisions need to be made to provide consistency throughout local authorities. Those of us who have served on local authorities all know the huge problem we have with collection rates, yet we have the huge success with the Revenue Commissioners collecting the local property tax. There is a question, moving forward, about the best way to collect local authority revenue.

We have all mentioned that we look at the Local Government Audit Service's annual opinion every year and that it remains the same, with no real action being taken on it. What can we do in future to address the lack of action being taken on the annual opinion? Having served on the first audit committee in Wicklow, I found it was hugely successful and beneficial from the local authority's perspective. I know the Local Government Audit Service only engages with local authorities once annually. Does Ms Larkin see those audit committees having a better role moving forward with regard to the overall audit performance of local authorities?

A debate is coming up on commercial rates. It is the most antiquated system that we have seen. It has been the only balancing act that local authorities have had to balance their books. The payment of commercial rates was never about the service. Commercial rates were balanced by what local authority members saw for income compared to expenditure. I am glad to see that is being addressed at last.

I will ask the Department about LPT and the baseline figure. What methodology is used? How is the baseline figure for each local authority calculated?