Labour Party proposals on local government funding would "bankrupt" most councils in the Border, Midlands and Western region, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche has claimed.
Mr Roche was responding yesterday to comments made by Labour Party environment spokesman Eamon Gilmore in relation to underfunding of local authorities in the commuter belt area around Dublin.
Mr Roche said Labour was "now advocating the allocation of funds to local councils on the basis of population".
This ignored the fact that councils such as those in the Border, Midlands and Western (BMW) region were spread across a large geographical area, had a sparse population or a very low rate base and required additional support for basic local services, Mr Roche said.
"If implemented, the Labour Party proposals would destroy the BMW area, undermine the national spatial strategy and regional balance, impoverish local councils in the counties with the lowest population and set regional development back by decades," Mr Roche said.
He estimated that more than €60 million would be cut from the budgets of councils in the BMW region on this basis.
Defending his comments, Mr Gilmore said he had never suggested that central funding to local authorities should be based on population levels only or on kilometres of road.
"I think the time has come to look at the way central funding is allocated to local authorities generally," he said. Some local authorities were so stretched that they were encouraging the spread of management companies to maintain new housing estates, and this was creating its own difficulties, Mr Gilmore said.
Mr Roche also took issue with Mr Gilmore's claim that Kildare, Louth and Meath county councils were at the "bottom of the league" in terms of funding and said Louth, Kildare and Meath were set to receive increases.
Mr Roche called on Fine Gael's spokesman Fergus O'Dowd to "say whether Fine Gael agrees with Labour's proposals to abandon the BMW region" and "to siphon funds from councils with low rates bases and transfer funding to Ireland's richest councils".
