Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, to the Chamber. Since being elected to this House in April 2020, this is the fourth occasion on which I have raised the issue of the loss of the rate base of more than €1.2 million to Longford County Council due to the early closure of Lough Ree power station. In September 2020, September 2021 and September 2022 I have raised this issue in the House and we have been successful. I thank the Department for that funding and getting the funding for the following year's budget. However, this year I bring it up before the summer. I am hopeful we will have a positive reply. I also hope for a positive reply for the years 2024 to 2026.

I quote the comments from Kieran Mulvey, the Just Transition Commissioner, on this issue. It is a matter of record, and it is worth reiterating here, that he recommended "that an urgent engagement takes place with the Chief Executives of the councils concerned [namely, Longford and Offaly] with the funding Departments so that a suitable emergency arrangement can be agreed to alleviate the rate losses over the period 2021-2026." Unfortunately, every year I have to come in here looking for that funding to be put in place while the local finance section under John McKeon is trying to put together the budget for the following year.

I was a member of the local authority and it was the first local authority to increase the local property tax, LPT, by 15%. We did that in order to ring-fence funding from that to match-fund a significant number of projects and schemes that had been brought forward by Government of which we could avail. We had CLÁR, the town and village renewal scheme, urban renewal development and outdoor recreation. That match-funding is in place for these projects and schemes throughout the county.

The reality is that if we are not successful in securing this funding, we will have to look at reducing our financial output in a number of areas to balance our budget in the year ahead. We do not want to do that and we should not have to do it.The Department needs to give us a commitment for the next three years with regard to the funding, as per the recommendation from the just transition commissioner. If we are not successful, we will have to look at reducing the number of schemes we apply for. We will have to consider the possibility of increasing our rates. That happened for this coming year, and we do not want to do it for the year ahead while a number of commercial businesses are finding things difficult in the current climate. A lot of businesses are struggling due to the reduced tourism numbers visiting our county. We want a commitment from the Department that we will secure that €1.3 million funding for 2024. We also need a commitment for the following two years to allow our finance section to budget ahead for the next number of years knowing that we will be compensated for the loss of rates. The facility was closed, and it was not of our doing. We have a progressive local authority, which is ambitious about the number of projects it wants to deliver in the county, not just in the county town. We need to have finance in place for the matched funding to deliver those projects.