Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is certainly welcome. We need to keep working on those derelict and potential sites in all parts of the city. We cannot leave it to local authorities to identify these sites. There is great pressure from communities to have positive developments, and that is the case in Ballymun.

I will return to the issue of local authority finance. This week, I met Kathy Quinn, Dublin City Council's head of finance, Councillor Séamus McGrattan, Councillor Daryl Barron and many others from Dublin City Council who want to have a better relationship in regard to local government funding. In what was a positive contribution. They said they just want more transparency. Few people understand local authority funding. I was on the council for ten years and it is tricky to understand. The baseline mentioned by Deputy Cian O'Callaghan is important. Abolition of the equalisation fund was welcome but local authorities that are self-funding are not able to keep 100% of the property tax that is raised. That is a difficulty because that line is used consistently. They are not able to keep it all because they would lose out on other funds on the basis of having exceeded their baseline for self-funding. This should be addressed it if the local property tax is to mean something. I agree with the Minister's criticism of some parties about calling for the abolition of property tax and then giving out that it is not bringing in more. It amounted to €1.2 billion for Dublin City Council this year. That is one of the biggest budgets it ever had and it was a huge support in the last three years. The point is we have to review the baseline so that 100% of property tax is retained in the local authority area.