Council’s Don’t Have Money to Take Estates In Charge

13th January 2006, Press Release

Local Authorities are not allowed to increase the amount of people working for them and some are grossly under funded according to Independent politician Catherine Murphy TD. She has stated that these are the fundamental causes for the situation whereby 19000 houses in Kildare alone are not having their maintenance needs met by either Local Authority or Developer.

"Kildare County Council simply doesn’t have the money or the resources to address this problem, they need to be allowed increase their staffing levels, they need a larger annual budget, and they need them now" demanded Murphy.

The 2005 Annual Budget for Kildare County Council, who service an approximate population of 164,000 people, was €27million. However compared to counties Mayo (pop 117,000 approx) and Galway (pop 143,000 approx) with respective budgetary allocations of €38million and €37million Kildare’s funding levels are visibly inadequate. The huge difference in budgetary allocation, according to Murphy, is in part a testament to the expanding populations of counties such as Meath, Dublin and Kildare which are not being taken into account when the Minister’s Department administers it’s Local Authority funding process. "While Kildare is not very well provided for it’s not the worst off", stated Murphy "South Dublin County Council have to provide for 239,000 inhabitants on €26million per year. No wonder we’re seeing problems such as inadequate resources, and the taking in charge issue crop up when these Local Authorities are not being adequately provided for."

Staffing levels are also a cause for concern according to Murphy as a staff embargo currently prohibits all Local Authorities from increasing the numbers of staff in their employment. Meath County Council employed 700 people in 2004 to serve the needs of its 133,000 strong population, that equates to approximately 1 staff member for every 190 people, similarly South Dublin County Council employed1365 people in 2004 for it’s population of 239,000 people or approx 1 staff member per175 people. However Kerry (pop 132,000, staff 1217) and Galway (pop 143000, staff 1002) averaged 1 staff member for 109 and 143 people respectively. Murphy criticized the embargo as a significant barrier to service provision stating that "its a very crude way of reducing or stablizing staffing levels on a national level as it doesn’t take account of local trends such as significant population increases or reductions."

Share This Post

Tweet

Posted by catherinemurphy on January 13, 2006. Filed under Your Home & You. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.