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

They long-leased rather than built, which is the very point I have been making.

I want to go back to the local government issue because it drives me nuts. A total of 35% of the population increase between 2016 and 2022 happened in five local authority areas. They would have been the substantial ones: Dublin City Council and Fingal, South Dublin, Kildare and Meath county councils. This Local Government Fund actually rewards geography as opposed to population increase.

I am looking at the Department's briefing document.

Nowhere in the briefing document was it calculated about there being a service deficit. Nowhere was it calculated on the basis of these new allocations that there was a new needs consideration in relation to when an area is being grown the services have to be grown with it. That was not considered at all. Geography was considered and compliance with national policies and a number of other things were considered. The complaint we hear from areas that are growing is that they get the housing development - and obviously not enough of it - but they do not get anything else with it. If we are to grow the country in a sustainable way, it will be through higher densities in urban areas but that policy is reflected nowhere in the briefing document the way these baselines have been worked out.

I want to come back to the figures and to reinforce the point I made earlier. It states in the briefing document that all of the equalisation funding is being met by the Exchequer this year at a cost of €118 million. Then the document states that this move is Exchequer cost neutral as the increase in equalisation funding required is offset by the increased requirement to self-fund. In other words, if they get more it has to be spent in a particular way and spent specifically on roads and on housing. It is not the discretionary spend that the impression is given that is it supposed to be. I am taking this from the witnesses' own documentation.

In some areas it will be new money but the figures given really reinforce the point of it not being new money for many of the local authority areas. It certainly is not for areas that are described as self-funded. In other words, once they go above a certain threshold, they have to self-fund housing and roads that would otherwise be grant-aided through Exchequer funding. I want to reinforce those points.

Will this now be the permanent method of funding for the future? If so, where are local authorities supposed to find the funding for new services because there is nowhere in this that there is a calculation for that?