James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I followed with interest the contributions from the previous Deputies and I want to come in on some of the points that have been made. It is quite interesting listening to the debate and I sympathise with some of the ailments Deputies identify from their constituencies where funding and various supports are needed. I also represent at least a partly rural constituency of Kildare North, including areas such as Carbury, west Kildare, Sallins, Kill, Bodenstown and beyond in Prosperous and Clane. We have any amount of rural areas so I am no stranger to the challenges these areas face.

On the Bill, we all awaited with some trepidation the review that was announced earlier in the year. We knew it was a long time coming and it was probably overdue if truth be told. The Minister got it right with the revaluation, banding and the levies that will now be charged. By and large, people will pay the same if not a little bit less than they might have done before in some cases. Some houses that were outside of the loop will be brought in but they had a good run. Some houses that were newly built got a number of years before they became eligible at all.

As I said, I listened with interest to my colleagues from other rural constituencies and it strikes me that perhaps their arguments are misdirected. It is not that their arguments do not have merit because they do but perhaps they should take up those issues with their county manager or the chief executive of the local authority. I do not understand how it is that we on Kildare County Council, when I served on it, were able to secure funding from the local property tax for a series of local improvements and that has not been possible in other counties. Perhaps they should speak to the councillors they are connected with - and I am sure other Independent Deputies work locally with councillors - or speak to the county manager. I can share the story of how we made the property tax work for us in the Kildare area. If that is of any assistance to other Deputies, that may be where they should direct their efforts rather than in this House, which organises the law as to how the property tax is collected and then redistributed. In fact, a lot of money flowed out of urban areas into rural areas to rebalance them.

For example, I mention the Naas electoral area, which I was proud to represent and I still represent, albeit as part of a wider constituency. We sat down at the beginning of the 2014 term and considered how we would collect and spend the LPT. The first thing we considered was that we had five rural villages within the district and all of them were lacking in amenities. They had been deprived for some time or they had not caught up. We set about a programme where we would fund the parks department to put a playground into each of those rural villages, one per year, over the five-year term. We did that and Eadestown, Ballymore Eustace, Sallins, Kill and Caragh all have playgrounds now. They are all rural villages and they were all funded to get solid playgrounds. That was an investment in amenities that are up and running and that are used by ordinary working families, as was referred to earlier, every day. I often wonder what an extraordinary working family is but perhaps that is for another day. In any event, people use them. They are the real and tangible fruits of the LPT being collected and spent by local authorities in a solid and meaningful way in consultation with local councillors. That is exactly what we did.

When we had spent that money, we examined where we would go next. I heard local roads improvements mentioned earlier. They are needed, including on the road I live as much as any other road in the country. Again, we consulted our area engineer and invited him into our council meeting as an area committee. We also consulted among ourselves as we all had local knowledge and we asked the area engineer to nominate the roads we felt most needed repair. His technical expertise copper-fastened that and assisted us if there were borderline choices. Again, we put money, through the local property tax, into local road improvements and projects and a series of roads across the district. Every year since, those roads have been resurfaced or repaired. I received a text from a constituent, Mr. Shay Davoren of Ballymore Eustace, this evening to tell me that the road near Tipperkevin where he lives had been resurfaced today again. That was a road that had not seen attention for 30 years prior to these initiatives that we were able to put in place from 2014 on as a result of the LPT bringing funding into the area and the local authority.

We had spent money on roads so we thought about what other projects were deserving of funding. As every Deputy will be aware, there are hard-working groups such the Tidy Towns committees, local history and heritage groups, festivals, folk groups and residents associations. We decided that they would probably know how better to spend the moneys than we would in many cases so we looked to increase and augment the grants they got. We did this in consultation with the council's finance department, where there was a list of those who applied for the council grants etc. every year, including heritage, festival and residential grants. That meant there was a degree of scrutiny or rigour about it. We doubled the grant they got, again using LPT moneys.

By the end of the term, we were almost wondering where else we could spend the money. Perhaps we were a well organised unit and we were certainly very collegial, working well together on a cross-party basis. We worked with our area engineer, the council finance department and the county manager. I do not say we were exemplary or that there was anything unique about the group other than that it worked hard and worked well together. That is an example of the LPT being collected and distributed through a local authority directly back to the people in rural areas. Our urban areas benefited as well, including Naas, but people in rural areas got a real and tangible result. They got physical infrastructure in the playgrounds, they got festival grants, they got the roads resurfaced and they were able to tap into that for any amount of services that were required. I was delighted to be able to turn around to the people at the end of five years and say to them that we had delivered for them in our areas. All of us on that area committee were able to do that.

I highlight that as an example of what could and should be done around the country. I do not know why it is a difficulty elsewhere, as has been suggested is the case. If it is a difficulty, perhaps it is not this Chamber it should be addressed in but with the county managers or finance departments of the individual local authorities. The model works well and I see no reason it cannot be rolled out across the country. I was a convert to the local property tax, having seen it work so well for five years across my area of Naas.

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