Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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347. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the current rules on the spending of development contributions; if restrictions remain in the context of general Government debt; if he will outline these; the current totals in tabular from, by local authority; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11172/22]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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My Department is responsible for monitoring the local government sector’s overall compliance with fiscal rules set out as part of the management of the Stability and Growth Pact. These include the contribution of the local government sector to the General Government Balance (GGB) and controls exercised under the Expenditure Benchmark requirements. The key factors that must be controlled by local authorities in relation to GGB requirements are as follows:

- Revenue account balanced- no deficit

- Capital account (excl Agency debtors type expenditure and non-mortgage borrowing) balanced

- Net increase in non–mortgage borrowing limited to levels sanctioned.

- Net bank position limited to previous years level.

Local authorities have been directed that, similar to their revenue account activity, capital expenditure should not exceed capital income within the reporting year. Development contributions are recorded in the capital account of local authorities. The precise manner in which capital and current accounts are managed in order to achieve the overall balance necessary is a matter for individual local authorities themselves.

However, within these overall limits, there is capacity for the expenditure of built up capital balances and own resources, or expenditure supported by borrowing, which must be sanctioned by the Minister with policy responsibility for the specific programme involved. Development contributions are raised under local authority contribution schemes in order to fund the cost of infrastructure to facilitate certain developments. These are linked to planning permissions and collected from developers as building work commences.

In reviewing requests for sanction, consideration is given to ensuring that priority infrastructural investment can proceed, that contractual commitments and on-going projects can proceed; and that development contributions already collected and aligned to specific capital projects can be utilised efficiently.

Development contributions account for 7% or €205.5m of capital income in 2020. Development contribution income per local authority for 2020 is set out below.