(Cavan-Monaghan): The next part of the section that I am coming to constitutes the county manager, the tachograph, or as lorry-drivers call it, the spy in the cab. Section 10(3) (e) says:
(e) it shall be the duty of the manager—
(i) before the adoption by the authority of an estimate of expenses relating to the local financial year specified in the direction, to prepare for the authority a statement indicating the effect of the direction in relation to such estimate,
There is not going to be any talk between the county manager and his concillors as to what would be a reasonable amount to spend this year, what schemes to proceed with, what amenities are to be provided, how much will be spent on by-roads and secondary roads, how much is to be spent on house repairs and that sort of thing. That is not going to be the sort of consultation or discussion that will take place between the manager and the authority. No, the manager will introduce the estimates meeting—if they are foolish enough to hold one any more—"Gentlemen, I have received a notification from the Minister for the Environment that this is what the rate in the £ cannot exceed this year". The Minister was cheeseparing a few minutes ago and saying that he will not be telling them what rate to strike and he will not strike the rate, but he will be very sure to say, "This far shalt thou go and no further. This is the rate which you cannot exceed."
The section continued:
(ii) in case the direction is not complied with, as soon as may be to certify in writing to the Minister the extent by which any limit specified in the direction is exceeded, and
That will be step two. The county manager will tell them what the Minister's direction is, the maximum rate that may be struck and if that is exceeded, back to the Custom House again, he will report that the council have disobeyed the great man's order.
Paragraph (iii) states:
(iii) where the provisions of paragraph (d) of this subsection apply, as soon as may be to amend the relevant estimate of expenses adopted by the authority so as to make it consistent with the direction (which amendment the manager is hereby authorised to make).
The one power that the local authority members had up to date was to strike the rate. It had been drilled into them down the years that they were to strike the rate. Here the manager strikes the rate on the direction of the Minister. He is the agent, the local authority tachograph for the Minister. The section concludes:
(4) This section shall be deemed to have come into force on the 1st day of November, 1977.
The Minister—although he was very slow to bring this Bill into the House and those responsible for processing Bills were very slow to put it on the Order Paper or seek or get time for it—is operating as if it was law. In one way we should be glad that we did have the opportunity of seeing how this section will work when it becomes law, because we have had the benefit of the Minister for the last year confining the expenditure of local authorities in 1978 to an increase of 11 per cent on the previous year right across the board, without any individual attention or assessment.
We had a discussion here yesterday on the effect of another section of this Bill which will freeze valuations of houses at a portion of their total valuation, having regard to the remission of rates to which the hereditaments are entitled. In the course of that discussion we pointed out to the Minister that this would work a great hardship on some local authority areas because they had reached saturation stage for building, there were no more building sites and any new building that would be coming in would be coming in outside the local authority concerned. The result would be a serious loss in revenue in certain local authority areas. The Minister said, "That will not happen because I will look at these right across the board and we will make special provision for certain cases." We know the provision that he made last year. He blanketed the 11 per cent ceiling right across the country from Passage West to Buncrana without any individual assessment or any look at all. Of course he did not impose the 11 per cent. No Minister for the Environment in control of local authorities acting freely on his own discretion would do such a thing. The Minister for Finance imposed it.
I do not know what amount will be imposed this year. We did have from the Minister recently in this House that the consideration is to be a budgetary consideration. The test will be not what local authority A requires to carry out their functions reasonably. The test will be what the national Exchequer can afford and that will be divided up on a percentage basis between all the local authorities without any regard to the special requirements of any of them. That was not the method adopted by the Minister's predecessors, the Ministers for Local Government, when they were seeing to it that the local authorities struck a rate sufficient to carry out their functions. The question then was not, "What is the capacity of the ratepayer to pay?" It was not what the capacity of the farmer, the local authority tenant or the occupier of a house to pay. His approach then was: what was a reassonable amount to enable a local authority to carry out their duties and responsibilities during the year?"
Now, out of the mouth of the Minister for the Environment, that will not be the test any longer. It will be the budgetary considerations and it does not matter if the Government act in a stupid manner and spend money here and there on all sorts of irresponsible schemes to get themselves into power. If it is necessary to cut back on expenditure to repay that we will have a blanket cutback over the whole country and local authorities will be left with one hand as long as the other with nothing in the kitty. The Minister may laugh and he may try to cover it up but we have not yet reached the end of 1978 and many local authorities are not in a position to keep on the men they have on their pay rolls.