Speaking at the 1st National Conference on Local Government Financing organised by Carlow Chamber of Commerce former Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Dermot Lacey, called for a major reform of Local Government and as part of that process the establishing of a National Forum on Local Government financing.<\/p>\n
\n“This fundamental issue of financing Local Government must be central to any reform package. Governance without an independent source of funding is clearly not governance at all. It is simply administration at a local level of central Government policies.”<\/p>\n
“In my view there is a need for a National Forum on Funding of Local Government. Such a Forum would be charged to, once and for all, agree a consensus approach on the issue. The forum would be comprised of the Social Partners, the main Political Parties and the three Councilor Representative Bodies. There should be an opportunity to contribute from the wider public.”<\/p>\n
“It would be given a maximum of twelve months to report. The forum could consider either a national and common approach to the funding issue or, as I would prefer, a range of options that could be determined as appropriate by local elected Councils. These could include everything from a tourist or hotel room levy, planning enforcement charges, a variable income tax levy, sales tax and so on.”<\/p>\n
“Real responsibility will then rest with local Councilors who will also have real flexibility as to how to spend this money.”<\/p>\n
“I want to see a transformed Local Government system. Local Government is best placed to tackle the key issues of Housing, Traffic\/Transport, Planning, Community Services and Policing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Speaking at the 1st National Conference on Local Government Financing organised by Carlow Chamber of Commerce former Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Dermot Lacey, called for a major reform of Local Government and as part of that process the establishing of a National Forum on Local Government financing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pr"],"yoast_head":"\n