As Carlow/Kilkenny local authorities face cuts of €1.5m in their funding from government, Deputy Phil Hogan has launched a radical plan to reform local government. Following Dail questioning by Deputy Hogan last week, the Minister for the Environment revealed that funding to Carlow/Kilkenny local authorities will be cut by €1.5 million in 2010.
Minister Gormley told the Fine Gael Environment Spokesman that Kilkenny's fund will be cut by €811,550. While Carlow's allocation will be short by €688,988. According to Deputy Hogan’s plan Kilkenny’s local authorities would become the main driving force in promoting business and development. The Kilkenny TD has set out his Party’s plans to reform local government in a new policy document ‘Power to the People – Bringing local government back to the people’.
The Fine Gael plan will involve 95 State bodies being merged or abolished, saving millions of euros for taxpayers every year, and freezing local business rates for the next five years.
Deputy Hogan said that local authorities must play an integral role in dragging Ireland out of the recession and in driving job creation. Declaring that local government is in limbo, if not in crisis, he said it has lacked a strong primary mission for decades with power and services being devolved to unelected ‘quangos’. Deputy Hogan said that Fine Gael’s plan will see: Local government should be the primary driver of business support and development at local level by ending the wide-scale duplication of services among unelected bodies and bringing them under one roof in local authorities to create a one-stop-shop. Fine Gael-controlled councils will freeze local business rates for the next five years. Ninety-five quangos merged or abolished: 53 bodies will be amalgamated into local government with the complete abolition of 42 more with an administrative saving to the taxpayer of over €70 million a year. In planning, separate transport and education plans need to be included in the planning process and in county and city development plans. “We want to see savings and efficiencies rather than new taxes and charges,” said Deputy Hogan. “We need to restore trust, services and responsibility back to local government. Putting local government back into a central role in the community will result in greater community cohesion, better services, and more employment opportunities, all the while saving millions of taxpayers’ hard-earned money.”
