John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

The Deputy is aware that when I spoke about costing, it was in the context of a forthcoming budget. The budget provides the costings for a programme for Government. The programme is simply a series of political commitments but the budget puts a financial shape on those commitments.

With regard to the programme for Government, we have considered a number of issues relating to the financing of local government. As I have always stated, it is our intention to broaden the revenue base for local authorities. We operate a system which, in my view, is unsustainable in the long term. The difficulties relating to it date back to 1977 and we are still trying to recover from them.

We have already begun the process of introducing reforms to broaden the revenue base. There are a number of steps in this regard. As already stated, I have introduced a tax on second homes. I would like to examine - this is included in the new programme for Government - the idea of a site value tax. In addition, we want to consider introducing some form of a system of water rates that will be based on allocation or metering. A capital investment will be required in this regard. The process of reform will be slow and difficult. There must be a political commitment to introduce the reforms to which I refer, and we must not shy away from the difficult choices to which I refer.

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