Councils break law over failure to file accounts

ALL but five of the country’s 88 local authorities are breaking the law by failing to file last year’s accounts before the legally required deadline.

And seven councils still have to file accounts from 2001, while a further three are three years late.

Environment Minister Martin Cullen will today tell a meeting of council managers in Dublin that the delay is unacceptable.

Under the Local Government Act 2001, county, city, borough and town councils must prepare annual financial statements by April 1.

However, according to figures obtained by Fine Gael’s Bernard Allen, most councils have still not filed accounts, almost two months after this year’s deadline.

The figures also reveal that seven local authorities have not only failed to file accounts from last year but still have not filed accounts from two years ago.

Meanwhile, accounts from Fingal County Council, South Dublin County Council and Birr Town Council are now three years late, the department’s figures reveal.

The breach means most of the €626m distributed to local authorities by the Department of the Environment last year, as well as a significant proportion of the previous year’s allocation, has not yet been publicly accounted for.

The department’s audit service, responsible for signing-off on all accounts, has still to complete its audit of the year 2000 accounts of 37 separate local authorities, according to its last report.

The last annual report of the Department’s Local Government Audit Service warned that a failure to fill staff positions had resulted in 1,000 lost audit days.

Mr Allen said there was a huge failure by local authorities to account for public spending.

“I’ll be asking the minister why he’s allowing the law to be ignored and abused by local authorities throughout the country, and why his department hasn’t been vigorous in pursuing them,” he said.

A spokesman for Mr Cullen said the failure to produce accounts was not acceptable.

“They are late and the minister is dissatisfied with them, and will tell them that at this week’s meeting,” he said.

Many councils blamed the delay on a new financial system being rolled out nationwide. However, Louth County Council’s head of finance, Tony Davids, said he was surprised so many had failed to meet the deadline. Louth was late last year but filed on time this year.

“We would see it as important to get the accounts out. I would be anxious to get them out within two or three months after the end of the year,” Mr Davids said.