Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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316. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if there is a restriction on recording full council meetings in either a statutory instrument or legislation. [49657/22]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The rules governing the meetings and proceedings of local authorities are set out under Part 6 and Schedule 10 of the Local Government Act 2001, as amended.

Schedule 10, section 14 requires that minutes of the proceedings of a local authority meeting must be drawn up by the meetings administrator. These minutes are then submitted for confirmation as an accurate record at the next meetings. The confirmed minutes are then the official record of the meeting.

Schedule 10, section 16 of the 2001 Act allows a local authority to make standing orders for the regulation of its meetings and proceedings. Standing orders may require that no cameras or any kind or recording equipment may be used at meetings of the Council without the prior approval of the Council.

In addition the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, which are under the remit of my colleague, the Minister for Justice, confers rights on individuals in relation to the privacy of their personal data as well as responsibilities on organisations holding and processing such data.

Any organisation using recording equipment should remember that simply recording and/or storing video and/or audio data could be considered as data processing, even if no further use is made of that data. Furthermore, that data may be considered ‘personal data’ where an individual can be identified from it and their prior consent may be required.

The Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) is the national independent authority responsible for upholding the rights of individuals under the 2018 Act, oversight of GDPR and other data protection requirements. The DPC has issued a range of guidance to assist organisations in complying with GDPR and data protection requirements, which may be found at the link below: dataprotection.ie/en/dpc-guidance.

Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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317. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will provide an update on his views expressed in July 2022 regarding additional funding for Galway County Council (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49686/22]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Across all schemes and funding sources my Department provided €82.9m in 2020, €84.4m in 2021 and €24m to end September 2022 to Galway County Council. Included in this is the unprecedented level of support provided by central Government to local authorities in respect of the COVID -19 pandemic. The payments in 2020 also included an additional allocation to Galway of €1m; funding that was linked to the operation of municipal districts, and in 2021 an additional allocation of €600,000 for discretionary income was made.

For 2023, the Government is making a significant contribution of €333 million to support local authorities. A large portion of this figure (€199 million) will be towards assisting local authorities with the cumulative effect on pay costs arising from the National Pay Agreements and the unwinding of the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) legislation. This allocation will ensure that local authorities will have the necessary resources, in terms of people, to perform their functions and provide essential public services to our citizens; in excess of one thousand services in fact. Furthermore, as has happened in previous years, we will be engaging with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in respect of any additional pay increases that are confirmed for 2023. The pay allocation for Galway County Council for 2022 is €4.4m. The 2023 pay allocation for Galway County Council, which will be in excess of the 2022 allocation, will be determined and notified to the local authority shortly.

My Department is very aware of the current financial environment in which local authorities, including Galway County Council, are now operating and, in recognition of the ongoing pressures, support of €60m has been secured to assist the sector. It should be noted that this funding is additional to the €333m outlined above, and its purpose will be to provide additional support to assist local authorities in meeting the increasing costs involved in providing a wide range of services. The individual allocations of additional support under this scheme and any other additional support to be provided are currently being finalised and the allocation for Galway County Council will be notified to the local authority shortly.

As committed to in the Programme for Government - Our Shared Future, the move to 100% retention of Local Property Tax (LPT) will take place in 2023. All Equalisation funding will now be met by the Exchequer, to ensure that all authorities receive, at a minimum, an amount equivalent to their Baseline. Local authorities may also vary their LPT rate by up to 15%; authorities that increase the rate retain 100% of the additional income, while local authorities that decrease the rate bear the full reduction in income. Galway County Council has opted not to avail of this opportunity to raise additional locally sourced income since 2018. The council could have benefited from an additional €2.15m in 2023 if it had applied the additional 15% upward local variation in the same manner as many other authorities. Galway County Council will receive €155,561 in LPT equalisation funding for 2023 in addition to an expected €14,362,329 LPT yield to achieve a baseline funding of €14,517,890.

Finally, it should be noted that it is intended to commence a comprehensive review of the current LPT baselines in the coming months. This review could not commence in time for the 2023 LPT allocation process without reliable and up-to-date data, primarily the detailed census data. The overall funding position of Galway Co Council and all local authorities will be considered as part of this review.