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

I thank the Senator for raising this issue in a Commencement matter. Kildare is a county I am very familiar with as I have strong family connections there. The Department acknowledges the funding pressures on local authorities generally. I also acknowledge some of the innovative work and funding the Senator outlined. Kildare County Council continues to do exceptional work.

As committed to in the Programme for Government: Our Shared Future, the move to 100% retention of the LPT has taken place in 2023. All equalisation funds are now met by the Exchequer, ensuring that all authorities receive, at a minimum, an amount equivalent to their baseline. In addition, the move to a 100% local retention model will lead to an increased surplus for those authorities, including Kildare County Council, with LPT income above their funding baseline. These authorities shall now retain a greater proportion of that surplus for their own use in 2023, an increase from 20% of the overall yield to 22.5% in 2023. The remainder of the increased surplus will be used to self-fund housing, roads or other services in the local area.

As the Senator may be aware, all local authorities have the opportunity to increase or decrease their base rate of LPT by up to 15%. The Minister and I acknowledge the elected members of Kildare County Council for taking the decision to increase this rate by 10% for 2023 and 2024. This upward variation will lead to almost €2.3 million of extra income for 2023 alone, which will be of great assistance in what is a challenging financial time ahead. This brings Kildare's total LPT allocation in 2023 for its own use to €19.3 million. The remaining €6.2 million of the allocation will be used to self-fund housing services in the local area.

The Government is making a significant contribution of €481.3 million in 2023 to support the local government sector. A large portion of this figure, €287.2 million, will go towards assisting local authorities with the cumulative impacts on pay costs arising from national pay agreements and the unwinding of the financial emergency measures in public interest, FEMPI, legislation. This allocation, which has seen an increase of €77.6 million from 2022, will ensure the sector will have the necessary human resources to perform their functions and provide essential public services to our citizens - in excess of 1,000 services in fact. These services that local authorities provide are increasing year on year and that is what we want to achieve. We want to devolve more power to local authorities.

Kildare County Council received €5.9 million towards increased payroll costs for 2022 and will receive €8.2 million for this purpose in 2023. The Minister and I are very aware of the current financial environment in which local authorities are operating and, in recognition of the ongoing pressures, additional support of €60 million has been secured to assist the sector in 2023. The purpose of this additional funding will be to assist Kildare County Council and other local authorities in meeting the increasing costs, and in particular increasing energy costs, involved in providing a wider range of services. Kildare County Council has been provisionally allocated €2.5 million in this regard.

I will come back with a supplementary answer in respect of the other points raised.