Donegal and the household charge

An Taisce... Oh that body.. controlled by people who live in cities and have holiday homes in the country; near which they don't want locals to build; in short a discredited organisation.

Can you say what they've based their figures on? Do holiday homes make up part of the housing stock? I.e. Does a vacant holiday home count as part of the housing stock & being vacant at the same time? Not many holiday homes in South Dublin...

Also there is nothing to say that this Vacant housing stock has become part of the vast debt we are struggling under, whereas if you look here you'll see how many Donegal Properties are undergoing NAMA enforced sales compared to those in Dublin; and with average prices in Dublin way in excess of those in Donegal, then property in Dublin would be the cause of a much higher debt burden than Nama'd properties in Donegal.

Which was my point... If people want to cut the central funds going to Donegal in ratio to the payment of the household charge, then as Dublin (people & companies based there) has generated vastly more debt than Donegal (as above) then let repayments on these debts be based on that ratio too..

Firblog wrote: »

Can you say what they've based their figures on? Do holiday homes make up part of the housing stock? I.e. Does a vacant holiday home count as part of the housing stock & being vacant at the same time? Not many holiday homes in South Dublin...

but a lot of investment properties own by people from outside of Dublin

Firblog wrote: »

Which was my point... If people want to cut the central funds going to Donegal in ratio to the payment of the household charge, then as Dublin (people & companies based there) has generated vastly more debt than Donegal (as above) then let repayments on these debts be based on that ratio too..

Do you mean use 2,000 subsidy to pay debt quicker?

Count Dooku wrote: »

but a lot of investment properties own by people from outside of Dublin


Do you mean use 2,000 subsidy to pay debt quicker?

Please elaborate, I don't understand your first point? Do you mean that Dublin people bought holiday/investment homes in Donegal? What does that have to do with anything??

Ah the 2000 again.. you still haven't provided any links to tell us where you pulled this figure from, or was did you only hear half the Pat Kenny story n97 mini was on about?

There are lots of us in Donegal who are embarrassed by the politicians that are elected in our county. Unfortunately, we are in the minority.

The arguement though of "does donegal generate enough money by iself" is an interesting one though. A nation's resources are usually shared out nationally. Whether it's people, water, food, etc.

n97 mini wrote: »

There was a lad on Pat Kenny in the last 12 months some time, and he calculated the net subsidy per person on the western seaboard to be around €4k, while at the same time those in the greater Dublin area are paying out on average €4k more in taxes than they are getting services for.

n97 mini wrote: »

Use search. Figures for the whole country were posted on this forum by a boards mod about a month ago.

Why don't you use it, you should be sure of your figures before posting.. Is it the €2000 supposedly posted by some mod the correct ones? or the €4000 - you swore by above - the ones you want to use in this discussion?
Please make your mind up and let us know when you have

Cheers

Could you post a link to where these figures came from please? These figures without some background info are not very informative imo

doc_17 wrote: »

A nation's resources are usually shared out nationally. Whether it's people, water, food, etc.

A lot of countries have local taxes which go directly to the local area. Local areas are free to set the rate too, which has interesting implications. We're such a parochial nation I think it's a system that would work brilliantly in Ireland - if people in D4 want to pay 10 grand a year in local taxes and have concierge services for all, well and good. Similarly if the people in Donegal are happy to have effluent flowing down the middle of the street and pay no local taxes, happy out for them too.

Firblog wrote: »

Cheers

Could you post a link to where these figures came from please? These figures without some background info are not very informative imo

CSO Regional income figures 2007: http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/economy/2007/regincome_2007.pdf

These are the comparable 2009 figures (CSO), with CAP from here, GNI contribution based on household income without taxes or transfers:

County|Pop|Transfers(m)|Taxes(m)|Transfers pp|Taxes pp|CAP(m)|CAP pp|GNI pp|Final Net pp
Carlow|54255|368|191|6782.79|3520.41|37.78|696.35|206.77|3751.96
Cavan|68585.68|397|250|5788.38|3645.08|67.06|977.77|212.75|2908.33
Clare|114922.3|652|488|5673.4|4246.35|84.62|736.32|232.88|1930.49
Cork|502128.26|2984|2337|5942.7|4654.19|237.63|473.24|251.33|1510.43
Donegal|157838.27|1056|444|6690.39|2813.01|96.3|610.09|170.67|4316.81
Dublin|1211506.83|7175|7965|5922.38|6574.46|23.74|19.6|323.44|-955.92
Galway|241232.03|1493|1032|6189.06|4278.04|151.08|626.29|240.34|2296.98
Kerry|145875.68|861|511|5902.29|3502.98|109.82|752.84|203.01|2949.13
Kildare|205969.74|1017|1158|4937.62|5622.19|41.51|201.53|289|-772.04
Kilkenny|94325.11|513|377|5438.64|3996.81|74.61|790.96|226.34|2006.45
Laois|72128.96|397|283|5504.03|3923.53|51.02|707.28|223.77|2064.01
Leitrim|31038.66|200|107|6443.58|3447.31|39.21|1263.22|207.8|4051.69
Limerick|190673.58|1309|824|6865.14|4321.52|77.98|408.96|235.93|2716.65
Longford|36954.84|257|131|6954.43|3544.87|33.32|901.66|200.34|4110.88
Louth|119233.16|777|462|6516.64|3874.76|26.88|225.44|227.13|2640.2
Mayo|128974.54|818|454|6342.34|3520.07|119.11|923.53|207.75|3538.05
Meath|180031.48|799|963|4438.11|5349.06|64.92|360.58|279.09|-829.46
Monaghan|60018.88|352|194|5864.82|3232.32|54.12|901.72|190.84|3343.39
North-Tipperary|68376.48|424|277|6200.96|4051.1|72.23|1056.35|231.4|2974.82
Offaly|76204.29|442|267|5800.2|3503.74|49.97|655.73|203.32|2748.87
Roscommon|61178.29|347|224|5671.95|3661.43|66.38|1085.05|216.22|2879.35
Sligo|65289.94|407|265|6233.73|4058.82|44.54|682.21|231.19|2625.94
South-Tipperary|89663.76|555|354|6189.79|3948.08|72.23|805.56|223.35|2823.92
Waterford|116320.65|774|454|6654.02|3903|55.09|473.62|218.27|3006.36
Westmeath|85325.95|533|334|6246.63|3914.4|54.06|633.55|219.92|2745.86
Wexford|141932.52|921|497|6489|3501.66|84.12|592.68|206.48|3373.53
Wicklow|139510.07|716|724|5132.25|5189.59|38.28|274.41|265.19|-48.12

So, Donegal people are net recipients from the whole system to the tune of €4,316.81 per capita annually. I should perhaps point out that I don't begrudge this transfer, but I do object very strongly to people at the other end pretending it doesn't happen.

It's unrealistic to expect somewhere like Donegal to be able to pay its own way in a modern economy - the costs of providing infrastructure and services per person are very much higher than they are in an urban area like Dublin, while for standard geographical reasons it's not going to attract the same mass of businesses as Dublin.

How about if the counties paid their own way? The following table shows income/capita with taxes and transfers, without, and each in turn as a proportion of Dublin income:

County|A. Income pp|B. Income w/o tax/transfer|A/Dublin|B/Dublin
Carlow|23426.41|20164.04|0.76|0.64
Cavan|22891.08|20747.77|0.74|0.66
Clare|24138.05|22711|0.78|0.72
Cork|25798.19|24509.67|0.84|0.78
Donegal|20521.01|16643.62|0.66|0.53
Dublin|30890.46|31542.54|1|1
Galway|25349.04|23438.02|0.82|0.74
Kerry|22196.98|19797.68|0.72|0.63
Kildare|27499.19|28183.75|0.89|0.89
Kilkenny|23514.42|22072.59|0.76|0.7
Laois|23402.53|21822.03|0.76|0.69
Leitrim|23261.31|20265.05|0.75|0.64
Limerick|25551.52|23007.91|0.83|0.73
Longford|22946.93|19537.36|0.74|0.62
Louth|24791.76|22149.88|0.8|0.7
Mayo|23082.07|20259.81|0.75|0.64
Meath|26306.51|27217.46|0.85|0.86
Monaghan|21243.32|18610.81|0.69|0.59
North-Tipperary|24716.1|22566.24|0.8|0.72
Offaly|22124.74|19828.28|0.72|0.63
Roscommon|23096.43|21085.91|0.75|0.67
Sligo|24720.5|22545.59|0.8|0.71
South-Tipperary|24023.08|21781.38|0.78|0.69
Waterford|24037|21285.99|0.78|0.67
Westmeath|23779.4|21447.17|0.77|0.68
Wexford|23123.66|20136.33|0.75|0.64
Wicklow|25804.59|25861.93|0.84|0.82

cordially,
Scofflaw

Council ignored damning report in paying extra €90,000 to firm

A CONSULTANCY firm was paid a further €90,000 by a council despite a damning internal audit that questioned its lavish expenses and found that some of the advice given was available for free on the internet.

A special internal report raised serious questions over Donegal County Council's payments of more than €2.4m to a London-based company, One Sigma Limited.
...
Despite his recommendation in his report in June 2010 that these expenses and others totalling thousands of euro should be recouped from One Sigma, they never were.

The auditor also discovered €180,000 in payments to the company were paid in advance of work carried out, in breach of normal council policies

Money was well spent, says former chief

"In relation to the tendering process, I have made it clear that there was no one else available at that time to do this sort of work," said Mr McLoone, who now sits on the Board of Enterprise Ireland.
...
The council had claimed a reduction in staff at the council by 100 in 2009 was a result of the new work practices recommended by One Sigma.
This claim was roundly dismissed by the auditor.

I'm afraid I really cannot get my head around the figures that you are putting up here; Donegal receives roughly €690,000,000 in wealth transfer from the rest of the country every year? (€4300 X 160,000)

All I can think now is.....where is my share???

K-9 wrote: »

I think the problem is you are looking at it from a "what do I see for it?" point of view.

A few Thank You cards to those of us in the greater Dublin area wouldn't go astray.

K-9 wrote: »

As Scoflaw points out... Only 4 counties are net payers, even counties with large population centers are recipients.

Even more of a reason why you should pay your taxes, be they household charge, VRT etc.

hmmm wrote: »

A lot of countries have local taxes which go directly to the local area. Local areas are free to set the rate too, which has interesting implications. We're such a parochial nation I think it's a system that would work brilliantly in Ireland - if people in D4 want to pay 10 grand a year in local taxes and have concierge services for all, well and good. Similarly if the people in Donegal are happy to have effluent flowing down the middle of the street and pay no local taxes, happy out for them too.

Yes that's perfectly understandable and I have no problem with this. So when Dublin drains the Shannon it'll all be even!

According to the chart at the top of this page it would appear that Donegal is the biggest drain per capita on the economy. Would that be a fair summation?

Godge wrote: »

Not necessarily, if you are in Donegal and online, you have probably had a subsidy for the provision of your broadband service.

That wouldn't have occurred to me, but, yes, under the Group Broadband Scheme or the EU-funded Rural Broadband Scheme, that's probably the case - Donegal has the highest number of applicants to the latter, certainly.

cordially,
Scofflaw