Labour wins increased funding for vital local services in new Dublin City Council agreement
The Labour Group is to enter an agreement on Dublin City Council with Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, with the support of some Independents, following a significant breakthrough on Local Property Tax, increasing funding for vital local services.
Since the introduction of Local Property Tax in 2014, successive Councils have insisted on reducing the payable rate by 15% each year, gifting away tax cuts to wealthy property owners. This additional revenue will now instead be ring-fenced and pumped back into Dublin to provide cleaner streets, a new playground fund, and at Labour’s request, additional resources to upgrade the city’s social housing stock.
The agreement also promotes inclusion, equality and integration for everybody who calls Dublin home, delivering public and affordable housing on council-owned sites, tackling vacancy and dereliction, introducing a hotel bedroom tax and expanding and investing in Dublin’s Active Travel Network.
For the first time, a city-wide Sports Plan will be implemented, focused on delivering much-needed pitches and community sports amenities, together with new community and arts spaces.
Commenting on the agreement, Cllr. Darragh Moriarty, Labour Group Leader on Dublin City Council, said:
“Going into this agreement came down to sticking to our principles and forcing a significant breakthrough on Local Property Tax for the first time on Dublin City Council. Over the last ten years, the majority on the Council has voted in favour of Local Property Tax cuts, squandering €125 million that could have been invested in Dublin. For the first time, we will now be able to restore Local Property Tax to its baseline level, meaning we can raise around €60 million over the lifetime of this council term to put directly back into Dublin. Investing in our City’s public services is vital – it will make people’s homes better, provide more active transport initiatives, cleaner streets and more parks.
“We also stand united to promote a city that is inclusive and welcoming for everyone who calls Dublin home. We stand against the hatred that has been whipped up to sow division in some of our communities and we will be resolute in creating a Dublin for all that is anti-racist.”
“For us in Labour, we have fought hard for other policy objectives to go into this agreement, including a commitment from the DCC Executive to work with us to increase the annual budget for housing maintenance. The housing maintenance budget at present is enormously skewed towards turning around empty council homes to get them back into circulation, and while this is important, we also have to invest in people’s existing poor quality homes. Every Councillor across the city will be all too familiar with DCC tenants living in substandard, horrendous conditions. People living in our flat complexes are suffering adverse health impacts and we will use our leverage as part of this agreement to increase resources going towards getting rid of damp and mould in people’s homes and upgrading windows from single to double-glazed.”
Cllr. Moriarty added:
“Labour, the Greens and the Social Democrats have stuck together consistently on the issue of Local Property Tax, and we wanted that to be the basis for a centre-left coalition. That wasn’t possible however, as the Social Democrats and Sinn Féin decided otherwise. We greatly regret that this breakthrough on Local Property Tax has been made without them. Funding vital local services matters more to us than optics.”