Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I have done a thorough analysis on this issue. Although I used the example of counties Wicklow and Mayo, if one matches counties of similar size, the same profile occurs in relation to growing areas. The 2005 figures were taken from the 2001 data and they were only marginally changed. I have the data for each year from 2001 onwards. The issue is that when the needs and resources model was brought in, a commitment was given that no county would lose out under the new funding mechanism. The problem is that growing areas will always lose out in that environment. A local authority which had a large staff and assets such as libraries or swimming pools at that point could count them as a need but the capacity to develop new services or grow the workforce was not factored into how the metric worked. There is a significant fault at the heart of this funding model, which if not reviewed will work to the disadvantage of some areas. The operation of the equalisation fund means counties that are growing are paying in more and more, which means the baseline will work to their disadvantage in terms of discretionary spend. I ask the Minister of State to ensure this is specifically looked at.

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