Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am taking six minutes and I will share two minutes with Senator Davitt. I thank the Minister of State for being here today and I want to speak about local government funding but first I welcome two good colleagues of ours, Councillor Joe Malone from Kilkenny and Councillor Cormac Devlin from Dún Laoghaire. They are both excellent councillors and they are here because Senator Davitt will ask the Minister of State when the Moorhead report will be published and how quickly, because that is of the utmost urgency.

It is vitally important local authorities like Carlow have sufficient long-term sustainable funding to deliver critical services to rural and urban local communities. I know Carlow County Council struggles with the day-to-day running of the local authority because of consistent underfunding from the Government. There is enormous pressure on the good people who work there but they are under pressure. Government grants and subsidies make up just 31% of local government funding and the rest of the finance on which they rely must come from charges for goods and services, commercial rates and local property tax. In 2019, business contributions will directly account for €1.55 billion or 34% of the total local government budget. This represents a 14% increase in the total value of commercial rates collected since 2010. Some €300 million goes uncollected each year and there is a need to address this. Reductions in central Government contributions have resulted in local authorities, such as Carlow County Council in my native county, becoming even more reliant on local business for their revenue. Our rates in Carlow are among the highest in the country, yet local authorities are responsible for the local economic development and these kinds of massive commercial rates can cripple businesses. We need to support businesses in our towns and counties and encourage the sort of vibrant economies that keep this country competing globally. New commercial rates incentive schemes are needed to encourage regeneration, entrepreneurship and strategic investment. We also need to hold local authorities to account and ensure they are effective in asking for help with investment issues and with spending money.

This Fine Gael Government has continually deprived local authorities of fiscal autonomy and limited their capacity to spend in areas such as housing. I am glad to say Carlow County Council has built a lot of houses in 2019 and I know it has a lot more housing in the pipeline for 2020 and 2021. However, across the country we need to see greater freedom and flexibility to ensure local authorities are able to react adequately to local circumstances, such as our housing crisis. This Government needs to ensure local authorities know how to access funding and ensure they know where to spend it and not hit homeowners constantly, which is a huge issue. In recent times, rural counties left far behind on capital funding have had to raise the rate of property tax, whereas places such as Dublin have been able to reduce the property tax rate. This all comes down to funding and the funding allocated to local authorities. It is grossly unfair to rural Ireland. I have said before and I will say again that we cannot all live and work in Dublin. We cannot reach into the pockets of hard-pressed homeowners in rural Ireland for more money because they are unfairly marginalised due to a lack of funding. The reason we have any economic recovery at all is because these people are working and paying taxes already. They do not feel they are getting value for money from this State and that is a problem.

Local government is a vital tier of government, quite simply because it is the local face of national politics. Local government needs to be adequately resourced and empowered to tackle local issues when they arise. Unfortunately, more and more of this power has been taken from local authorities and instead the citizens are left feeling frustrated and let down because more red tape is being introduced.

The last revaluations were done in 2015. In Carlow, only 30% were physically revalued and 70% were revalued using maps. If one is trying to appeal this, the process goes on for months and even years. The Government needs to look at this. This is not being addressed. One cannot physically go on a map and decide what the measurements of a premises will be. That is not right and 70% of were revalued by using maps in Carlow. That is unacceptable.

I am sure the Minister of State will come back to me on this matter because we are neighbours. How does Carlow compare with other counties with the same population in capital funding? Since 2008, Carlow County Council has not had an increase in general capital funding. It has had no increase in general funding for 11 years. Carlow County Council has been speaking to the Department and it seems there is a claim for underfunding of over €4 million. That is unacceptable. I am disappointed the county of Carlow, which is the Minister of State's neighbouring county, is fighting for funding from this Government and the Government is not delivering on it. It is unacceptable and I am looking for answers here because Carlow cannot be forgotten again.