Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I accept that people are employed, but there probably needs to be workforce management to some degree where some of the local authorities that have to cater for an increased population are unable to play catch-up in staffing. I put some tables together to look at the trend. The trend is that in the case of County Wicklow, for example, which the Department uses as a case in point in its table for demonstration, there is total expenditure of €91 million, while in County Mayo there is a total spend of €125 million when everything is counted, although County Wicklow has a bigger population. It is the same in the case of County Tipperary and County Galway. County Tipperary has a smaller population than County Galway, it has a spend of €135 million as opposed to €104 million in County Galway. There is the same trend if one matches Limerick city and county against Fingal. In the Fingal County Council area there was a 43% increase in population in the 20 years from 1996 to 2016, but it is one of the biggest contributors to the local government fund. In Limerick city and county there are nearly 100,000 fewer people, but the area has a greater expenditure amount from all sources. It is not a question of saying one county has plenty of commercial rates income, while another receives a greater amount from other facilities and services. It is looking at the total spend. The common denominator is that one county is disadvantaged dramatically if its population is growing. There are places that did not exist in 2000. They could not be modelled, but they are now subject to this baseline. What is being examined in the review of baselines? Is it the baselines in the distribution model that will be the central piece?