I was struck by a meeting we had in Galway City Council last Friday with Oireachtas Members where the city manager pointed out that he needs to find €2.5 million for essential developments. The reason I raise this is because we need an urgent debate in the House with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government on the funding model for local authorities. The way it is set up at present means 87% of funding to run our cities and counties needs to be raised locally through commercial rates and local property tax. What councillor will vote in favour of these against the local people? Our city is starved of resources, with only a potential 13% available from the Exchequer. The city is spoken about as being starved of human resources as it is down 100 people.

A person cannot be buried in Galway city on a Sunday because they do not have enough money to pay the premium rates for Sundays. They are starved financially. There are 20 presentations of families per week seeking homes. We are talking about an emergency. Mark my words, there is absolutely no recovery when it comes to the funding of local authorities. There is a murder machine because of the cover-up job, with people saying everything is okay because of the local property tax. Galway is a very important city and a counterpoint to the east.

Is the Senator seeking a debate on the issue?

We are talking about regional and western development. Neither I nor anybody else in the Chamber, I would wager, wants to see local authorities falling down because of the model of funding being applied by the Government. I seek an urgent debate on the issue. It is appalling that a person cannot be buried on a Sunday in Galway city because of the lack of human and financial resources.

If they do it on Monday, is there a problem?