Councils pay for State failings

THE Government’s ongoing refusal to put localauthority funding on a proper footing is preventing local authorities from investing in social housing.

Yet it is the local authority staff that are being forced to answer for the “massive policy failure” when families approach them for support.

That is according to the chairman of trade union IMPACT’s local government section, Alice Hennessy who last night addressed the union’s biennial conference in Ennis. She said staff find themselves at the rough end of Government policies that stymie local authority services.