The 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 do not arise. However in May 2022, Louth County Council returned €1,390 to the Local Government Fund. This arose from an over claim for the Outdoor Summer support scheme for 2021.
Across all schemes and funding sources, my department, as it was then configured, provided the amounts set out in the table below to Louth County Council between 2016 and the end of June 2022.
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2016
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2017
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2018
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2019
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2020
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2021
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June 2022
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€33.4m
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€31.7m
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€46.6m
|
€61.4m
|
€126.5m
|
€107.8m
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€27.5m
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