Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is no problem. The Chairman is quite right to pose the questions he has posed. I am not surprised by what I have heard. I spent 17 years on the council until 2016 and am familiar with the pressures that we were under every single year in terms of self-generation of funds through parking income, rates and other levies so I am not surprised whatsoever. I was quite au faitwith those pressures that the authorities are under.

I welcome the many witnesses and thank them all for their service not just in the past week, but continuously on behalf of the State across the whole range of local government. Last week showed the best of the staff who work in our local authorities and all the emergency services and volunteers co-ordinating with them, and I have huge respect for each and every one of them and the work they do. As I said, we have a large number of witnesses this morning. It is the most I have ever seen at the Committee of Public Accounts. We also have a large number or reports, agendas, opening statements and accounts. In my 17 years on the council, one always would be wary of bulging agendas because the wily county manager, who at the time had the old country secretary, would stuff an agenda and make sure it was fairly big. When the councillors would come in, they would see the size of it and the fight would be gone out of them before even walking into the room. They would be happy enough to go with perhaps just works on a local road. I still remember talking to a manager in my early years as a councillor. He was nursing a pint of Guinness and he said to me, "Light agendas scare the bejaysus out of me, young Cassells, because God knows what they would ask me." I have only 20 minutes. I will focus on just one or two items and lighten this agenda.

I will kick off on the funding issue, in particular the local government fund, LGF, and people's property tax, a tax that, as we see from the information supplied, brings in some €450 million. In the broader context of the funding mechanisms, it is around 7% on that pie chart to which the Chairman referred so it is not a chief contributor. For the people who must pay the tax, it is obviously a very big charge. We know that the taxes are now under review for the charges for the coming years, and I know when Mr. Lemass was here a few weeks ago for the session on revaluation of commercial rates, he touched on the LPT very briefly, the review that was under way and the additional funds that could be raised from it. Regarding all the scenarios the Department is painting out, how much extra revenue does Mr. McCarthy feel can be derived from this fund? I am not asking him to go into the setting of policy but obviously he will present a number of scenarios and look at what is coming in in the first instance and not coming in in other areas. Can he tell me how much additional income the Department is aiming to bring in from the LPT? Is it a significant additional amount, based on the analysis of property price increases over the last five years?