Levy on Second Homes – Budget Reaction – Letter to the Editor
The Editor, The Irish Times (published 22nd October)
Madam, – There was so much in the Budget to be critical of and so many regrets at the failure by the Government to seriously tackle the economic problems in our society, the decision to unilaterally target the over-70s being perhaps the most cynical. However, I want to comment on one other aspect that has so far been seriously misrepresented in the media – including your own Editorial of October 15th.
The proposed levy on second homes, while in many ways a laudable proposal, will not go to the local authorities concerned as initially understood, but rather will be collected by them and paid into a central national Government fund. It will then be used to subsidise the cut in funding envisaged from the existing local government fund.
Using local authorities as the collection box for the national coffers is bad for accountable democracy and flies in the face of the recommendations in the Green Paper on local government reform published by the Government earlier this year.
If we are to ever have accountable, responsible local government we have to ensure that elected councillors will determine how such monies can be raised locally and then spent locally. Local authorities acting as the collector general for those in the Custom House and the Department of Finance in the manner proposed is bad for Ireland, bad for democracy, bad for responsibility and surely would be something that the Green Party would have once opposed. – Yours, etc,
Cllr DERMOT LACEY,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.
