Mr. Paul Lemass:

I will revert briefly on the issue of towns balancing their books while there is a deficit in the county. One of the issues that has been flagged to us as a benefit of municipal district system is that it benefits the full district. There is a sense of fairness about this. A town raises commercial rates and parking revenue, but that revenue does not come exclusively from inhabitants in the town. Commercial businesses thrive because people from the hinterland come into the town to shop which enables them to pay their rates. The parking requirement in a town arises partly from people from the town, but largely from people who come in from outside the town. From the perspective of fairness, it does not seem unreasonable that the district should benefit from the revenue raised.

I have been through Deputy Ó Broin's issues.

In response to Senator Murnane O'Connor, the draft budgetary plan at municipal district level is intended to be the vehicle through which the budget is localised to the municipal district. We will look more closely at how well that is working and try to make it as effective as possible. I mentioned the schedule of functions devolved to a municipal district level. Our concern would be that the powers exist but are not being used in all cases. When we ask the more effective councils - we contacted those in Tipperary as recently as yesterday - the list of functions performed and services available at municipal district is hugely impressive. It may well be a question of implementation, but the 2014 Act allows for a wide range of functions mandated to happen at municipal district level and an additional suite of functions which can be delegated by the plenary to the municipal district if necessary.

As part of our current reform work, we are looking at a proposal on devolution. After Christmas we hope to develop a paper on devolution to look at more functions. We agree with the Senator that we would like to see more functions performed by local authorities.

Block grants were given by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. We would be happy to see a reversion to block grants being given to the municipal district area if that were possible.

On the level of engagement with the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, we had meetings with the AILG about three times in the past six months, including one as recently as three weeks ago. It was also heavily consulted on the survey and signed off on the survey. The clear message was that it was not calling for the restoration of town councils. It believes that the current system needs to work the full term before it can be reviewed. That is clear and unequivocal from the AILG.