COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF CLONDALKIN AREA COMMITTEE

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

QUESTION NO. 10

QUESTION: Councillor T. Gilligan

To ask the Manager how much is owed in levies to the Council in the Clondalkin area?  How much was paid and what was this figure in 2009, 2010, & 2011?

REPLY:

The Councils Development Contribution Scheme is applied county-wide and the income from same is spent county-wide. At the end of Sept 2012 the contributions owing to the Council were €27.8m (€34m end 2009) with a bad debt provision of some €17m. As the scheme is county-wide information on receipts or unpaid contributions are not readily available on an electoral area basis.

Contribution debts arise upon commencement of development. The Councils overall debt relates to approximately 250 developments ranging in scale from extensions to multi unit commercial or residential development.

The Council having been notified of development commencing raises an invoice for the related development contributions. However inspections have verified that despite notification of commencement and subsequent raising of a debt that approximately 40% of the debt relates to development at stages such as incomplete/under construction, not commenced or construction ceased.

Of the remaining 60%, 35%-40% of the debt relates to substantially completed and vacant development and the remaining 15%-20% to completed and occupied development. As a significant number of the permissions for developments either did not commence or are incomplete but permissions are expiring, the bad debt provision must remain at this level. It is also prudent to maintain this bad debt provision given the current depressed financial climate.

Receipts for 2012 to date are currently €3.2m which is up 20% on the total for 2011 (€2.7m).