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

It would be useful to see that because, to be honest, regarding some of this stuff, including these enhanced leases, it is very difficult to see where you could possibly look at that from a value for money perspective and come to the conclusion that there is value for money so let us have a look at those.

I have a question about the local government fund, something about which I routinely ask, and the review of the baselines and the change in them. The population with regard to the local government fund really dates back about 25 years. That is the basis of how they were originally determined and it has not changed much in that time. The population of the area I represent has doubled in that time but the baseline has not changed and this determines how much local property tax the local authority can spend. You cannot grow a population without growing the services to meet that population increase but that is exactly what has happened. Trying to figure out the local government fund is akin to the third secret of Fatima. I spent several months going through this. If members of the public, particularly those in areas that are growing, really understood this, they would be up in arms because the money is not being spent where it needs to be spent because the system is not population-based. It pays no attention to population. What is happening? I know a political decision was made on this. What information does the Department have? Has it produced reports on how it is be managed in terms of when that change is going to happen because parts of the country are at breaking point in terms of delivery of services that should go with their populations?