Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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24. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if his Department has carried out an analysis of the effect the unwinding of FEMPI is having on the budgets of local authorities in view of the fact they must absorb the cost of same. [2122/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Budgetary allocations in support of both the Lansdowne Road Agreement and the Public Service Stability Agreement have been made to each Department through the estimates process. In the Revised Estimates 2018, some €59.6m was made available to Local Authorities through the Local Government Fund to cover the costs arising from the relevant agreements.      

The Local Government Act 2001, as amended by the Local Government Reform Act 2014, provides the legislative basis for the local authority budget process. It is a matter for each local authority to determine its own spending priorities in the context of the annual budgetary process having regard to both locally identified needs and available resources. The elected members of a local authority have direct responsibility in law for all reserved functions of the authority, which includes adopting the annual budget, and are democratically accountable for all expenditure by the local authority.