Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will give a quick list of all the additional work that local authorities are doing, including in areas such as active travel, town centre first, the expansion of services around arts and culture, social inclusion, integration and local community development committees, LCDCs. These are all extra services provided by local authorities and a welcome increase in their range of functions, which I am sure all elected members would welcome.

The Department and Government have provided extra planning staff to deal with the planning the Senator mentioned earlier. We are providing biodiversity officers. Next week, we will announce additional conservation officers and vacancy officers as part of the town centre first policy. Additional resources are being plugged into all of our local authorities and are critically important. That is recognition of the important work done by councils.

I hope the baseline review will produce proposals that will help the long-term financial viability of Galway County Council and all local authorities. In the longer term we need to look at broadening the income base of councils and there are many innovative ways of doing so. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and I are very much committed to the local government sector. Galway continues to do extremely well, not just through the funding provided but also the resources provided to the community.