Councils will be obliged to shift excess property tax cash from roads to housing

Local authorities will be told to funnel excess funds from the Local Property Tax (LPT) away from roads and towards housing from next year.Under plans being brought to Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, Minister for Housing James Browne is proposing no change to the allocation of almost €750 million in LPT revenues to local authorities. However, he intends to change the rules for councils that generate excess funding.City and county councils that gather more than a baseline level of funding – of which there were 10 last year – are allowed to keep 31 per cent of this for their own use, while those who fail to hit the baseline figure are topped up by central Government. Local authorities are required to spend a portion of this excess on services in their area in lieu of central funding. To date, some of that has been used for roads, with the remainder allocated for housing. Browne will tell Ministers that from next year, all of any excesses arising must be spent on housing. READ MOREThe Minister will also provide an update on Met Éireann’s efforts to develop a national flood forecasting and warning service. The aim is to make more detailed flood forecasts available to the public, local authorities and emergency services. Minister for Communications Patrick O’Donovan is to tell the Cabinet of his plans to push for stronger online protections for young people. He is to host a private meeting of EU ministers this week, on the fringes of an EU conference on online safety, to discuss potential age restrictions for social media access and other measures. The private discussions, a source said, will help lay the groundwork for negotiations on forthcoming European Commission proposals on child safety online. O’Donovan will also brief Ministers on the annual report of the beleaguered Arts Council, which faced controversy last year when it emerged it had lost millions on a botched IT project. He will say the council received €140 million in State investment last year, awarding 1,865 grants, and that its accounts have given it a clean bill of health, with no control issues identified. P aul Mason on communism, China and the crisis of the leftElsewhere, Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon is to brief the Cabinet on the impact of the extraordinarily dry summer on the agricultural sector, with grass growth declining and deteriorating across July and August. He will tell colleagues that the weather has left farmers facing additional costs to source feed while also eating into winter fodder supplies. While recent rainfall has helped, some farmers, especially in the southeast, are facing fodder shortages. The State has been allocated €15.4 million in EU funding for farmers affected by higher fertiliser and energy costs arising from the war in the Middle East, which can be topped up by up to 200 per cent by national governments. Heydon is expected to say there is significant demand from farm organisations to top up the funding. Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan is also likely to update Cabinet on his plans to tighten conditions for those making citizenship applications, including introducing a language test and increasing the time an individual must have spent in the State before seeking naturalisation. Taoiseach Micheál Martin will brief Ministers on plans to update the State’s national strategic risk assessment, which considers the risks to the State in the short, medium and long term. Previous assessments have focused on issues such as Brexit, pandemics and global trade disruption. Martin is expected to say the next edition will involve a public consultation and an invitation to parties in the Oireachtas to make submissions.