Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The programme reflects the need to put the funding of locally delivered services on a sound financial footing, improve accountability and better align the cost of providing services with demand. It was considered that, in light of the complex issues involved, a local property tax would take time to introduce and, accordingly, the Government decided to introduce a household charge in 2012 as an interim measure.

An appropriate broadening of the revenue base for local government will be achieved through the household charge and the forthcoming full local property tax, which is important in ensuring that local authorities have the necessary resources to continue to deliver services to their communities. As this topic demonstrates, the introduction this year of the household charge and the introduction next year of the local property tax have an additional benefit, beyond that of a more sustainable system of funding the local government sector, in that a local property tax will direct attention to the local services that are being funded by that tax. Citizens will, I hope, engage with their local elected representatives in a new fashion to address the services that are being provided and the quality of those services, thereby altering in a meaningful way the relationship between the taxpayer citizen and the local authority which is funded by those taxes. This change in the local dynamics of accountability will, I believe, have a transformative beneficial impact over the long run, further reinforced by the general programme of local government reform.

The diverse services provided by local government are very important for our collective well-being. The range of local authority services include the following: road maintenance and cleaning; libraries; fire and emergency services; street lighting; parks and other recreation and cultural public amenities; spatial and development planning and other similar services; regulatory and inspection functions; and business support services. All primary local authorities provide such services. Crucially, they also provide democratic representation for communities, which is a unique function of local authorities. We all benefit from the services local authorities provide, even when such benefits accrue at a community level, such as from the positive contribution libraries make to society as a whole, or the benefit of having access to services one may need in the future, such as fire and emergency services.

The household charge and the local property tax are not intended to reflect the degree to which an individual household, or set of households, receive services. Liability is not reflective of service usage at any one point in time, not least because such a mechanism, in my view, would be regressive and inefficient. Rather, funding from property-related taxes reinforces the link between decisions on service provision as a whole in a local authority and the funding of those services. I thank the Senator for raising this issue.