The undercharging by Waterford County Council of €53,000 from developers for social housing contributions was due to mathematical errors in calculating the amounts, councillors were told last night.
The council's director of corporate affairs, Martin Walsh, told a council meeting the procedure used to calculate development charges was complicated.
Mr Walsh said he did not wish to understate the errors but the sums involved were not major in the context of the council taking in a total of €2.4 million in Part V planning contributions since they were introduced.
Part V contributions are payments by developers to local authorities in lieu of allocating 20 per cent of a development to social and affordable housing, as set out in the Planning and Development Act, 2000.
Mr Walsh said the council's first option was to accept the housing within a development and, failing that, to accept land on a development with a financial contribution in lieu of the housing.
The €2.4 million collected in either payments or commitments from developers since the introduction of the Act came from a wide rang of developments across the county, he said.
Developers were entitled to offer a financial contribution and this was usually their preferred choice. But there were instances when, given the nature of the development, it made more sense for the council to accept a financial contribution as well as houses or land.
Mr Walsh was responding to a series of questions from Labour's Cllr Teresa Wright, Fine Gael's Cllr Damian Geoghegan and Sinn Féin's Cllr Brendan Mansfield about the undercharging of €53,000 and the external auditor's noting of the deficit.
Last month, Local Government Auditor Patrick J Healy pointed out in his report on the council's accounts for 2003 that there were "two significant errors" amounting to €53,000 in the calculation of Part V planning contributions.
"To compound and add to my concern, these contributions were signed off and approved by a second member of staff. The developer in both cases had paid the agreed contribution and as a result, the undercharge is uncollectable."
Mr Walsh said the council had learned of the errors and had rectified its own system in mid-2003 before they were discovered by the auditor. The auditor had noted that corrective action had been taken.
Cllr Wright had asked for information on what amounts were paid by which developers in lieu of providing social housing. Cllr Geoghegan said such information should be made available to councillors.
Agreement had been reached in council offices between council officials and developers on what Part V development contributions they should pay. However, councillors in the relevant areas of the county were never informed, said Cllr Geoghegan.
