Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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360. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if local authorities are including a separate budget figure for drainage and maintenance of rivers when submitting their annual budgets (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41203/24]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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My role and responsibilities as Minister do not extend to the maintenance, clearance or dredging of rivers, nor does my Department provide specific funding for this.

The Local Government Act 2001, as amended by the Local Government Reform Act 2014, provides the legislative basis for the local authority budget process. Local authorities are entirely independent corporate entities, having full responsibility under law for the performance of their functions and the discharge of their governance and other responsibilities. 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. Moreover, local authorities have broad “general competence” to take action in relation to local matters with little direct involvement of central government.

The provision of detailed information on income and expenditure is a matter for each individual local authority. The format of the statutory budget book for all local authorities is circulated on an annual basis. There is no specific categorisation within the budget book for the drainage and maintenance of rivers.

The Office of Public Works (OPW) is the body through which central Government exercises its statutory responsibilities in respect of river drainage and flood relief works. Where the commissioners of the OPW has completed a drainage scheme under the Arterial Drainage Act, 1945 and 1995, it becomes the statutory requirement of the OPW to maintain the drainage works forming part of the scheme.