Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have tabled amendment No. 3 to amendment No. 20, and it is very similar to some of the other ones. Amendment No. 20 would allow the Minister for Finance to take up to €540 million from the local government fund and transfer it to Irish Water. The provision changes section 6 of the Local Government Act 1998, which established the local government fund. It achieves this by altering section 79 of the Local Government Reform Act 2014, which then Minister Phil Hogan brought before the Dáil, and which allowed up to €600 million to be transferred from the local government fund to Irish Water.

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However, approximately €470 million was taken out. This section of the Act is entitled, "The local government fund and Irish Water". This provision simply changes the date by which deductions can be made from the end of 2014 to the end of 2015 and decreases the amount from €600 million to €540 million. The Minister of State, Deputy Paudie Coffey, described this is a one-off measure. That is exactly what we were told last year and the previous year. It is a one-off event that happens every year. The Government may need to introduce legislation on it every year, but, in effect, it is merely changing the date and the amount. I called a vote on section 79 when we were debating it. The section provides that the Minister may make payments out of the local government fund to Irish Water in respect of water services functions transferred from local authorities to Irish Water. This came about as a consequence of the resistance to water charges in the early 1980s which were related to major anti-tax marches and proposals to broaden the tax base. The Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1983 introduced water and refuse charges which were called service charges at the time. These were resisted for a number of years and in 1997 it was agreed by the rainbow coalition Government that motor tax revenue would be ring fenced in the local government fund to provide certainty. This revenue was additional to commercial rates and other income.

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