KILDARE CONTINUES TO BE CHEATED

According to Cllr Catherine Murphy,  Kildare Local Authorities have  received just €29m to run services,  for its 186,335 inhabitants,  in coming year.   This contrasts poorly with counties such as Mayo  and Donegal who received €41m and Donegal  €44m respectively;  Mayo has a population of 123,839 while  Donegal’s population is 147,264.

Inadequate funding  has a direct bearing on the extent and quality of public services,  such as,  street cleaning and maintenance of open spaces;   waste management including recycling;   road/footpath repair;   traffic management / traffic calming  etc.     “The minimum the citizens of Kildare should expect is a fair transfer of the national cake – even in hard times.”

“The €29m received by Kildare is significantly less than the county received in 2006,  it falls far short of what is needed,  and will impact on the ability of the Council to maintain services to the public.”  

The method of deciding what each County receives is deeply flawed according to Murphy, with a failure to provide for counties that have been to the forefront of population expansion.   Kildare led the charge over that past 25 years   with a whopping increase of 44% in its population;   the County now has the 4th largest population in the Republic, overtaking the combined Limerick City/County for the first time in 2006.

Even in the good times there was no real effort  to increase the local government fund in line with population increases.   That trend has continued in the most recent allocations,  which in the opinion of Cllr Murphy,  is simply cheating citizens of an equal share of the available resources.

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Posted by catherinemurphy on November 16, 2008. Filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.