Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to highlight this issue, which is a problem for many small counties. I will articulate the views of Carlow County Council, the area I represent.

Carlow County Council collected €3.85 million in local property tax, of which €3.08 million is retained as the 80% contribution for the local authority. It receives a contribution from the equalisation fund of €2.27 million, which brings its total fund from the local property tax to €5.35 million, a reasonably small amount when compared with other counties of a similar population.

Roscommon County Council's 80% contribution is €3.2 million, but it receives a contribution from the equalisation fund of €5.99 million, giving a total contribution of €9.11 million. Sligo, with a population similar to that of County Carlow, receives a total amount of €9.99 million in contributions from the fund. It is almost impossible for a county of Carlow's size to provide the services required without proper funding. I believe this fund needs to be redistributed to take into account the small counties that do not have the same ability to raise their own funds.

The main source of funding for local authorities comes from commercial rates and in Carlow's case the commercial rate base is quite small. Unfortunately, in recent years a number of large industries, including the sugar factory which historically was the largest contributor to commercial rates in County Carlow, have now closed. Other large contributors, Braun and Läpple, have also closed. That income stream has now gone.

The commercial water charges will transfer to Irish Water in coming weeks as that process started on 1 July. Therefore that funding stream has also gone.

With the introduction of the housing differential rent scheme a number of local authorities, including Carlow, are losing funding from that point of view. This has resulted in a loss of approximately €250,000 to County Carlow in the coming year.

I ask the Minister of State and the senior Minister to redistribute the fund so that everybody would be on a level playing field. I outlined cases of counties with similar populations to Carlow being treated more favourably. We also need to look at the overall funding of local authorities to bring the funding stream back to where it was in 2008, 2009 and 2010. As with other local authorities, the overall budget for Carlow County Council has reduced by approximately €4 million since 2008. That €4 million could provide many extra services and the only way a local authority such as Carlow County Council can provide extra funding is through increasing the local property tax, which is not always possible to do. A 1% increase in the local property tax in County Carlow would equate to €38,000, which will not provide much of a service.

In his reply I ask the Minister of State to address the two issues I raised - the redistribution of the local property tax fund and a new funding model for local authorities. There may be other initiatives which might help local authorities, including the scheme to encourage people to come back to live in town centres. I am delighted the Minister of State visited Carlow in recent weeks to investigate some of the issues that could be helpful to Carlow and other counties. I hope that next Tuesday's announcement might contain some initiatives that could be helpful in that regard.

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