Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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1523. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the value of development levies accrued in each local authority in each of the years 2016 to 2018, in tabular form. [18573/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Development contributions are levied as conditions attached to planning permissions and are payable prior to commencement of development or as otherwise agreed by the local authority. Commencement notices are issued by the developer to the local authority and these generally trigger the raising of the charge. Local authorities may facilitate the phased payment of contributions, such as when units are completed or when a particular stage is reached in the development.

In order to avoid inconsistencies in recognising income and the raising of invoices that would be unlikely to be collected in the near future, a pragmatic approach to accounting for income has been adopted. When a commencement notice is received, contributions collectable within the next 12 months are usually treated as income and a short-term debtor is raised. Those contributions not deemed collectable in the next twelve months, are treated as deferred income, with potential debtors not collectable in the next twelve months being treated as long-term debtors. Deferred income is treated as a long-term creditor and is match against Long-term development contribution debtors in the Annual Financial Statement (AFS). This accounting treatment acknowledges that long-term debtors are not income in the current period, and they may or may not become due depending on the progress of the development and are thus deferred to future periods.

Local Authorities operate on an accrual accounting basis and recognise income and expenditure as incurred, regardless of the cash transactions. The AFS do not separately show the amount of cash on hand in relation to development contributions but instead show the amount of development contributions due to local authorities.

Appendix 5 of the amalgamated AFS shows a total income of €211.5m for Development Contributions for the financial year ending 31/12/2017, which is the most recent year for which audited figures are available. The development contribution income for each local authority for both 2016 and 2017 is set out in the table below.