Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 September 2022
265. Deputy Cormac Devlin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will provide details of monies returned from the four local authorities in Dublin to his Department by category for each of the years 2019 to 2021, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45536/22]
View answerThe funding system that applies to local authorities in Ireland is a complex one, as those authorities derive their income from a variety of sources including commercial rates, charges for goods and services and funding from Central Government including my Department but also other government departments and state agencies. Most of the funding from Central Government to local authorities must be used for specified services. These can be grouped into 5 broad programme categories: housing, transport, recreational, education and environment.
My Department has a wide and diverse business agenda, covering a broad range of functions, including local authority housing, voluntary housing, homeless services, estate regeneration, energy efficiency retrofitting, housing grants, rural water schemes, urban renewal/regeneration, and fire services. In order to achieve its business objectives, my Department allocates significant resources to an extensive range of organisations, including local authorities, dedicated agencies, and other bodies; some allocations, depending on the programmes concerned, are made on a national or other non-county basis in the form of grant funding.
Grant funding is provided primarily on the basis of vouched expenditure, as opposed to specific up front annual allocations, once all necessary requirements as detailed in grant assistance schemes are met by the bodies/organisations concerned and that appropriate systems and procedures are in place to ensure the exercise of proper financial controls. Accordingly, the circumstances of funding being returned to the Central Exchequer through my Department do not generally arise. I'm not aware of any refund in respect of these grant programmes from the four Dublin local authorities between 2019 and 2021.
However there was some funding returned to the Local Government Fund in respect of the Covid Commercial Rates Waiver/Support package. In early 2021, Dublin City Council returned €1,095,036 and Dun Laoghaire/ Rathdown County Council returned €10,196 in respect of the 2020 rates waiver. Similarly in March 2022, South Dublin County Council returned €70,148 in respect of the 2021 waiver.
