Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

The Minister was very disingenuous when he said we always had these levies. A total of €250 million has been collected in levies arising from the Planning and Development Act 2000, at which time the Minister sat at the Cabinet table and allowed the 20% cut in capital expenditure of local authorities to be funded by another stealth charge to communities in the form of development levies. The Minister is crying crocodile tears if he talks about the threat to the manufacturing sector imposed by these levies and other costs when he presided over stealth charges and taxes set by his Government in order to make up the shortfall in local authority funding. He should ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to review these levies, the related legislation and the state of capital funding to local authorities in light of this imposition.

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