Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 April 2024
419. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will provide the amount of grant-aid returned and or surrendered to his Department, by local authority in 2022, 2023 and to date in 2024, to include the heading of which it was intended for. [19364/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe funding system that applies to local authorities in Ireland is a complex one. Local 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, 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. Such grant funding is provided once all necessary requirements as detailed in grant assistance schemes are met by the bodies/organisations concerned and where appropriate systems and procedures are in place to ensure the application of appropriate financial controls. Accordingly, the circumstances of funding being returned to the Exchequer does not generally arise.
However, some refunds were received to the Local Government Fund (LGF) in respect of the Covid Rates Waiver. The Government provided support for local authorities via the LGF from 2020 through to Q1 2022, with €1.27bn (net of refunds) being provided for a rates waiver. This took the form of a credit in lieu of rates, applied to ratepayer accounts by local authorities, and the value of which was subsequently recouped from this Department. A number of authorities refunded a surplus in funding; €1.34m of which was returned to the Department in 2022 (€412k) and 2023 (€927k).
