John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is not. What the Senator outlined was essentially that if the management of the council did not like the budget that was passed, it could write to the Minister to seek to have it overturned. That is not what this provision will enable the Minister to do. It concerns merely the annual rate struck by the local authority. It ensures that local authorities do not pass on their entire net losses in a given year to the commercial ratepayers in their respective areas. In this way, the losses would be spread more evenly throughout the different sources of funding available to local authorities. However, there is no provision here to the effect that just because a county manager does not like a budget, he can seek to have it overturned. It must be on the basis of the local authority members voting through a rate of valuation change which is outside the parameters within which local authorities normally vary their commercial rates at budget time.