Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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782. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the amount of public moneys allocated to local authority water and sewerage departments and to Irish Water, as appropriate, from either motor tax or local property tax in each of the years 2009 to 31 March 2016. [6231/16]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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All Motor Tax income accrues to the Local Government Fund. The Fund has historically provided local authorities with finance for funding some of their day-to-day activities, including elements of water services costs, through General Purpose Grant allocations; for non-national roads; and funding for certain local government initiatives. Details of the General Purpose Grant allocations to local authorities for the period 2009 to 2014 are available on my Department's website at:.

As a result of the introduction of Local Property Tax (LPT) and the establishment of Irish Water, the local government funding model changed considerably in 2014. Since 2014, the Minister for Finance pays an amount equivalent to the Local Property Tax that was collected in the particular year, from the Central Fund to the Local Government Fund. Local Property Tax allocations replaced General Purpose Grants in 2015; the full amount of LPT is paid to local authorities to fund vital local services. The 2015 LPT allocations are published on my Department’s website at:

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Similarly, the 2016 allocations are at:

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Details of other funding provided to local authorities to date in respect of water and sewerage from both the Exchequer (Exch.) and the Local Government Fund (LGF) are set out in the table. Local authorities also received Exchequer funding in respect of water quality and environmental related costs.

Irish Water received a subvention of some €439 million in 2014 for operational expenditure, to fund water-related expenditure incurred heretofore by local authorities and which would, historically, have been met by local authorities from their own resources, non-domestic water charge revenues and general purpose grants from the LGF. In 2015, €399m was provided to Irish Water in respect of the operational subvention. This funding from the Local Government Fund is in respect of the child allowance (21,000 litres per child per annum), a product subsidy and the cost of capping domestic water charges. A working capital loan of €96m was provided to Irish Water in 2015. In addition, a capital contribution of €645m has been provided to Irish Water to date (2014 - €239m; 2015 - €222m; and 2016 - €184m).