Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 19 June 2025

Public Accounts Committee

2023 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2023
Chapter 2 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 11 - Exceptional State Funding of the Peter McVerry Trust
Chapter 12 - Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund
Local Government Fund - Account 2023

2:00 am

Photo of Paul McAuliffePaul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. It is good to see the money being put to good use. That is what it is for. Part of the difficulty we have is that some of the self-funding local authorities were allowed to keep 100% of their local property tax but in essence that means absolutely nothing. They do not keep 100% of it because they lose out in other ways. It is galling to see a figure of even €200 million, if it has dropped. The idea that €300 million could be sitting there when a local authority and people in Dublin city are paying their local property tax and do not get to keep it all because of the self-funding cap on top of that. Those self-funding caps have to be addressed. It is a policy matter and I do not expect Mr. Doyle to comment on it but they have to be addressed. It is galling that there is €293 million sitting in a fund when we are looking at other ways to fund, for example, the Dublin city task force and so on.