Council may be forced to carry the can

DURING the whole household charge debacle, Environment Minister Phil Hogan certainly hasn’t covered himself in glory. In fact, what he has managed to do is display a stubborn political pride.

Despite coming under intense pressure from the moment he unveiled plans to introduce the controversial €100 household charge, in line with the requirement in the EU and IMF Programme of Financial Support for Ireland, he has steadfastly refused to back down. He has bristled with indignation at the mere suggestion that he has badly mishandled the whole episode.
The more he was bombarded with criticism, the more Big Phil dug his heels in. While he hasn’t handled criticism well, the unrelenting pressure to back down merely served to reinforce his resolve to push through the Bill for the introduction of the household charge.
The Bill, he outlined, would provide for the raising of some €160 million from the household charge, which would be used to support the continued delivery by local authorities of vital community services, such as fire and emergency services, libraries, street cleaning and lighting.
When it became clear that a large proportion of the country’s householders were railing against the imposition of yet another tax, Minister Hogan conveniently changed his line of attack.
He engaged in what some political commentators and political opponents perceived as bullyboy and scare tactics. He tried to shift the responsibility of making householders compliant over onto local authorities, threatening them with the prospects of a cut in Local Government Funding commensurate with their collection revenues. Effectively, he wanted public servants to become cash collectors.
What Minister Hogan indicated was that he would reward authorities that pulled out all the stops to collect outstanding registrations, while penalising those who didn’t with cuts in their financial allocations for the delivery of public services, such as roads, parks and pathways.
This week, correspondence will arrive on the desk of Clare county manager Tom Coughlan from Minister Hogan. Its contents will be clear and unequivocal. It will be yet another threat to penalise the local authority for something they have absolutely no responsibility for.
Responsibility for the collection of the household charge and compiling the database of all liable households rests with the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA). Revenue generated from the household charge is forwarded to the Exchequer and later distributed to local authorities to support the provision of local services.
What Clare County Council has done is facilitate the payment of the charge through their library network and council offices.
Householders also have the facility to pay through the Citizen Information Service, yet this body hasn’t been placed under threat of having funding withheld.
Clare has just over 60% compliance, placing it in the top half of the State’s 34 city and county councils. Yet, it has been threatened with the withdrawal of 5% to 15% in funding for the third quarter of the year.
Clare Fine Gael TD, Pat Breen, has described the contents of the letter as a “threat” to withhold Local Government Funding and “not a cutback”. He said it is an incentive for Clare County Council to get more money in by way of household charge payments.
One can cloak the contents in whatever words they want but the bottom line is that Clare County Council may have to do without considerable funding that Mr Coughlan would already have budgeted for.
Last year, the council had its Local Government Funding reduced to €12.7m, down 8.9% from the previous year. If faced with a cut in funding for the third quarter of 2012, Mr Coughlan will have no alternative but to rejig his budgets and review projects.
In the past when cuts had to be introduced, they impinged on the council’s frontline services. Road works had to be shelved. An obvious ramification, were this the case, would be the need for the local authority to look at roadworkers’ full-time employment. They may end up having to put employees on short time. Who knows?
The Government has stated the household charge is a first step to a fully-funded equitable property tax.
“This measure is a further demonstration of this Government’s commitment to restoring balance in the public finances. It will provide a new stream of funding for local government, enabling the sector to continue to respond to local needs and contribute to a more efficient, accountable and effective local government system. This is local democracy in action,” Minister Hogan has stated.
However, what has emerged is the potential for the policy to encourage social dislocation and inequality. Applying the minister’s criteria, the wealthiest regions in the country will get more resources than they have already, while the poorest will continue to go without.
With the latest threat, the people of Clare have been held to ransom. It is socially divisive and even the people who have already forked out the €100 charge will be made to suffer by way of a diminution in the delivery of public services. Where’s the equity?
Perhaps the timing of the Government’s heavily-hyped €2.25 billion Infrastructure Stimulus PPP Programme earlier in the week was a cynical, political ploy to deflect attention away from the threatening letter to withhold funding.
While the programme has been described by Deputy Timmy Dooley as “repackaging” and “rehashing the same stuff”, his Fine Gael counterpart Pat Breen countered by saying the Government is putting the funds in place to finance the capital projects.
The new secondary school in Tulla is coming on track sooner than anticipated. Ennis, Gort and Limerick City have each been earmarked for primary care centres in the stimulus package. They were among 35 locations identified but only 20 will see primary care centres built under this phase of the programme.
Only time will tell if Ennis is one of the chosen few.