John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)

I will address the local property tax first. There was a review of the baseline local property tax in 2024. Part of that baseline review was to ensure that every local authority got at least €1.5 million of an uplift. That increased the amount of local property tax from €353 million to €428 million, so it was an additional €75 million in the base for the local government sector. Obviously, a revaluation is under way at the moment regarding local property tax and the expected additional yield from that is €42 million. We have agreement from the Department of Finance to ring-fence that for the local government sector. That will be an additional €42 million to be retained within the local government sector. Local property tax is one of several areas of funding that funds local government. It only equates to about 6% of all funding, albeit an important part.

Regarding resourcing for planning, that is significant. We understand the challenges in our planning system. I referred to exempted development earlier. We are trying to remove things that do not need to be in the planning process in order to free up staffing resources within the local authority sector. In the ministerial action plan for planning resources, we ensured that there are 101 posts under phase one, 90 of which have been filled, and in January this year there was further approval for 112 posts, which were made up of 56 graduate planners and 56 staff officer posts. We are getting there. In the context of the budget, further resourcing for the sector is ongoing.