Hogan denies he is holding councils to ransom
And he said he is concerned about “misinformation being presented publicly and in the media” following his issuing of a circular last week to city and county managers.
Mr Hogan’s circular revised downwards the third-quarter payments of the general purpose grants from the Local Government Fund (LGF) — the largest source of local authority funding.
The decision factored in “the level of household charge compliance” in each local authority areas, Mr Hogan said.
In Cork City — where compliance stands at 59% — the council was expecting a €4.3m payment from the LGF fund in the third quarter.
But its LGF fund has been cut by 10%, or €1.7m, and its third- quarter payment has been slashed by €446,103.
City manager Tim Lucey said he would make immediate arrangements to assess the implications of the cut and what actions are needed to balance the books.
Opposition politicians reacted angrily to the minister’s move and said it would put the continued delivery of already under- pressure services at risk.
The minister has now written to the chairmen of all local authorities to set things straight.
He said as of Jul 20, some €97.5m had been collected nationally from the household charge, which is expected to yield €160m in 2012.
“The circular clearly states that local authorities can progressively recoup their original general purpose grant allocation through improved household charge compliance,” he said.
“This clearly incentivises local authorities to take the necessary measures to improve household charge compliance in their administrative areas.
“This approach also recognises that the administrative follow-up by individual local authorities [based on a data-sharing exercise] will now only begin to have a real bearing on the remaining compliance levels in local authority areas.”
He said that the final amount of general purpose grants for 2012 will be revisited and reviewed in the final quarter of the year, taking into account the financial position then, including progress on securing an increased household charge yield.
Cork’s Lord Mayor, Cllr John Buttimer, said the cut in funding will have a serious impact on the ability of the city council to deliver the programme of activity it set out for 2012.
He said cuts will have to be made which could impact on a range of services, from grass cutting to the funding of festivals.
