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

At previous meetings on this issue, I tried to tease out issues relating to central government funding to the local government sector and from the local government sector to the local authorities. I was a long way down the rabbit hole by the end, but I was none the wiser. We will go at it again. In his opening statement, the Comptroller and Auditor General spoke about the "complexity" of the issues pertaining here. That is putting it mildly. I want to start by asking Mr. John McCarthy about local authority current expenditure per capitaby county, as a percentage of the total local authority current expenditure per capita. The Department provided us with figures in respect of that last year. I want to understand this because I spent 17 years on the council trying to grapple with these issues. I know councillors are still grappling with them. I am sure people in certain counties must scratch their heads when they look at the real disparities between counties. According to the 2017 figures that were provided when we were doing the accounts last year, County Meath is at the bottom of the list with a spend of €537 per head. County Meath is at the bottom with 61%. County Leitrim, which has a population half the size of Navan, is up near the top at 118%. I know there have been good managers in County Leitrim in the past decade or so, but that is crazy. I want to understand how the Department is working to try to reconcile these figures. It is not acceptable that County Meath, which has a population of almost 200,000, is bottom of the chart. Shortly after the start of this year, my town council Bill was killed during a private scrutiny hearing. In course of the knifing that took place at the committee hearing, the Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, mentioned that the Department, in coming forward with new initiatives, was looking at the methodology being applied to all counties. I would appreciate it if Mr. McCarthy could expand on that.