Paying for a proper service

Driving home last week I was listening to the radio and heard the head of a local authority bemoaning the lack of funding, and that the €100 household charge was not being paid by everyone.

When he was questioned about his very generous salary, he compared himself to the heads of large companies that have comparable budgets and staffing levels.

The question of how our local authorities are funded will not go away, so I thought what does the local authority do for me? As someone from a rural part of the county, there doesn’t seem much. There are only a handful of street lights in the area, maybe a dozen. We have very little footpaths, and the majority of houses have septic tanks or are in a group system.