Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

There has been a substantial reduction in local authority staff numbers in the past year. Those figures indicated an approximate decline of 4,000, with the majority of those being temporary staff.

Local authorities are letting temporary staff go because of reduced budgets, with less money coming from both central Government and from rates. Most of those temporary staff were not well paid but they are now on the dole, so the public purse is paying their social welfare when the could have been employed by local authorities to do important work.

There will also be huge pressure on the remaining permanent staff, where numbers have also fallen significantly. Looking at tables for local authorities in response to previous questions, there is a huge variation between local authorities. Cork County Council has lost almost 500 staff but this was the council area that faced challenges from both flooding and snow. Now it faces problems with bad road conditions. There will be no major road works for the foreseeable future so temporary repairs are now important.

The shedding of local authority staff is not sustainable when we consider the challenges faced by those local authorities. Eventually they will not be able to function. Would the Minister not attempt to get the Minister for Finance to change his policy on funding for local authorities?

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