Dáil Éireann Debate, Friday - 16 September 2016
599. Deputy Ruth Coppinger asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the way the discrepancy between the approximately €122 million outturn for the rental accommodation scheme in 2015 as listed in his Department's housing statistics and the €200 million recorded in local authority budgets 2015 as spent on RAS is accounted for. [25370/16]
View answerThe 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. Consolidated annual budget data for all local authorities, compiled by the Department is available on my Department’s website.
The 2015 Local Authority Budget Publication available on my Department’s website at http://www.housing.gov.ie/sites/default/files/attachments/local_authority_budget_publication_2015.pdf identifies estimated expenditure total of €200.19m in respect of the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) across each local authority in 2015.
My Department recouped €121.8m in voted Exchequer funding in respect of the operation of RAS to local authorities in 2015. In addition, local authorities report that a total of €14.8m in RAS costs were met by local authorities directly using built-up RAS reserve funds in 2015. There are a number of other income sources available to local authorities for the scheme other than the recoupments from my Department including inspection fees paid by the Residential tenancies Board (RTB) and rental income received from the tenant.
Each local authority is required to prepare an Annual Financial Statement (AFS) of actual income and expenditure by the end of March following the year end. These financial statements undergo an independent audit by the Local Government Audit Service. Queries in relati on to the individual statements, as well as annual budgets, are a matter for the relevant local authority.
