Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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1465. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if local authorities will retain surplus property tax revenue raised in their area into the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34564/14]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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My Department has advised local authorities of their provisional Local Property Tax allocations from the Local Government Fund for 2015. 80% of LPT will be retained locally to fund vital public services in 2015. The remaining 20% will be re-distributed to provide top-up funding to certain local authorities that have lower property tax bases due to the variance in property values across the State.

Local Property Tax was introduced to provide an alternative, stable and sustainable funding base for the local authority sector, providing greater levels of connection between local revenue raising and associated expenditure decisions. Given that local authorities vary significantly from one another in terms of size, population, public service demands, infrastructure and income sources, the Government has decided that no local authority will receive less income from LPT in 2015 than they received from the Local Government Fund in 2014. Certain local authorities, with stronger property bases, will receive greater levels of funding from local retention of LPT in 2015 than they received from the Local Government Fund in 2014.

The Government has decided that these latter local authorities will use this surplus funding in two ways, with a portion available for their own discretionary purposes and the remainder, if any, to fund some services in the Housing and Roads areas for which they currently receive Central Government funding. The portion that will be retained for discretionary purposes will be an amount equal to 20% of the total expected LPT income in the relevant local authority area (before any decision to vary rates) or, in the case where that surplus will be less than 20%, the full amount. It will be a matter for the individual local authorities to decide how to spend that discretionary funding.

I have advised local authorities of their individual provisional LPT allocations for 2015. This information has been provided at this early stage in the budget process for 2015 in order to ensure that local authorities have sufficient detail available to inform their decision-making in respect of LPT rate variation for 2015 which must be completed and notified to the Revenue Commissioners by 30 September 2014.

Matters relating to equalisation levels and methods for future years will be reviewed as necessary and appropriate.