HAVE YOU EVER wondered what your local council spends its cash on? A new app is here to show you just that.
Not only can you check exactly where the money is going, you can also see how your local authority spends its budget compared to the national average and against other councils.
The public policy app also has a section “Where did the money come from?” which goes through the income sources for local authorities.
Taking Dublin City as an example, the app shows the councils budget in percentages and then gives information on each section.
The aim of the app is to inform voters about what local government actually does in advance of the upcoming elections.
The app also allows users to compare councils.
For example here the app compares how Dublin City and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown councils spend their budgets. It’s broken into sections that can be checked individually.
Looking at Cork as an example of checking income sources, the app can be used to show what makes up the councils budget.
Economist and researcher with Public Policy.ie Cormac O’Sullivan said,
This will be the first local election since the introduction of the Local Property Tax which Councils can raise or lower by up to 15 per cent and the public are understandably curious about the services provided by their Local Authorities.
“For most people, this is the first time they will be faced with the tradeoff between providing more local services at the cost of higher taxation, or reducing their tax bill at the cost of cutting services”.
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