The Financial Performance of Irish Local Government

Local councils in Ireland experienced the same boom and bust conditions that the national government and the general economy witnessed since 2007/8. Whereas the public finances of central government have been subject to much research and debate, the same level of scrutiny was not applied to subnational government and local public finances. Yet, local government suffered a fall in local revenues combined with significant reductions in central government grants. In this study the authors set out to assess the relative financial performance of Ireland’s local authorities using a financial performance measurement framework.

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Contact

• Geraldine Robbins, Accountancy & Finance, geraldine.robbins@nuigalway.ie
• Gerard Turley, Economics, gerard.turley@nuigalway.ie
• Stephen McNena, Economics, J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics, NUI Galway Stephen.mcnena@nuigalway.ie