Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 70 was made to subsection (e) of section 58 during Committee Stage in the Seanad to clarify further the role of the members of a municipal district in considering the draft budgetary plan. This provides that the members of the municipal district shall by resolution adopt the draft budgetary plan, either with or without amendment. However, I recognise that the local authority budget process must be drawn to a conclusion and a budget meeting held within the period set for the holding of such a meeting.

It is important that a failure by the municipal district to adopt a draft budgetary plan can be managed within the timeline for the overall local authority budget process. For that reason, I introduced amendment No. 71 to subsection (e) of section 58 during Committee Stage in the Seanad to provide that the chief executive shall take account of any adopted budgetary plans in preparing the draft local authority budget.

The Bill contains a comprehensive framework for the preparation of the draft local authority budget with further details on timelines and formats to be set out in regulations. In the first instance, the draft local authority budget must be prepared setting out the amounts necessary for the functional programmes of the authority and including an amount to be provided as a general municipal allocation. The consultative process, commencing with the input of the corporate policy group, as set out in the Local Government Act 2001, remains central to the development of the local authority budget. The chief executive must then prepare a draft budget plan for each municipal district. Each draft budgetary plan will set out the general municipal allocation being made available to that district. To ensure that these allocations are made with due regard to the principles of fairness and equity, I introduced an amendment during Committee Stage in the Dáil to provide that in making resources available to the municipal districts for their members' consideration in a draft budgetary plan, the chief executive must have due regard to the resource needs of that municipal district within the broader needs of the local authority and the resources available to it. The process through which the budget is developed is a consultative and collaborative one and will ensure that the service that is provided by the local authority continues to serve the needs of the whole local authority area.

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