Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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325. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if he will provide details of existing debts of all local authorities here showing total loans and total annual servicing costs and loans as a percentage of total annual revenue on a local authority basis, in tabular form. [26633/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department monitors the impact of borrowing by local authorities on the General Government Balance (GGB) on an on-going basis. While there is a requirement for the overall borrowing of the local government sector to remain within the GGB parameters, should there be a requirement to borrow, my Department will consider any sanction request in the context of supporting priority infrastructural investment, meeting contractual commitments and ensuring appropriate projects can proceed. Budgetary matters are, however, a reserved function of local authorities and it is incumbent on individual authorities to ensure that any new borrowing is matched by appropriate repayment capacity.

The information in the following table has been sourced from the audited Annual Financial Statements of the 31 Local Authorities for the year ending 31December 2014 (the most recent year for which audited accounts are available) and includes the balances outstanding at that date and the total annual revenue for the year. The servicing costs of these loans are not however separately identifiable in the Annual Financial Statements and are not available in the format requested.