Longford County Council gearing up to spend a whopping half a billion in the next three years

Longford County Council's capital expenditure is expected to increase by over €60 million during the next three years with total spending set to hit nearly half a billion euro.

Details of project spending were outlined to local authority members at last Wednesday's March meeting of the local authority.

Capital expenditure from 2025 until the end of 2027 has been set at just over €229 million -some €61 million and €502,125 more than the equivalent capital expenditure budget announced last year for the 2024 to 2026 three year period.

The local authority expects to spend a total of €470 million between 2025 and 2027.

John McKeon Head of Finance, IT, Procurement and Facilities outlined to members the 'very aspirational' plan for spending.

"This is the most ambitious one in the history of Longford County Council.

"There is expenditure in this for the three years of nearly €230 million so if you add that to the trajectory and the way the revenue budgets are going, we will have a revenue budget of €76 million this year so in 2025 we would intend to spend about €139 million," he added.

Mr McKeon said based on the same estimates in 2026 they would expect to spend €177 and in 2027 they would intend to spend €154 million, which would bring the total spending to approximately €470 million.

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"That is almost half a billion euro over three years and you will recall at the budget meeting in November when we looked back on the last council from 2019 to 2024 there was half a billion spent over five years.

"So we are looking at spending it over three years now," he added.

The overall Capital Expenditure for 2025 is €63,430,266 (Up €5,948,912 on projections last year) and in 2026 the figure is €97,239,801 (Up €37,760,689 on last year's projections) while in 2027 there is €68, 825,353 available.

Increases in spending under the Housing and Building budgets over the next three years are significant with a total of €114,788,349 available compared to just €74,932,049 between the 2024 and 2026 period.

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For the next three years the Housing and Building budgets are: €27,042,010 in 2025 and €56,123,597 in 2026 and €31,622,742 in 2027.

There is an increase in the Road Transportation and Safety spends over the three years, from: €16,726,612 in 2025 (Up €1,534,511 on last year's 2025 projections), €17,186,612 in 2026 (Up €2,201,761 on last year's 2026 projections) and €17,066,551) in 2027.

Under Economic Development, C&E, HR, Libraries,Culture & Heritage the 2025 spend is €15,867,645, rising to €18,635,592 in 2026 and dropping marginally to €18,197,060 in 2027.

Mr McKeon stated the budget plan was dependent on Government grants.

"We have a great track record on those from 2019 to hopefully they will keep coming and then after that it is dependent after that on probably borrowing and our ability to service borrowing through the revenue account and through the strategic business plan that was presented to you back in November,” he said.

“We also have our own resources and things like development levies, capital receipts when we sell houses, any reserves we have or any transfers from the Revenue account every year that we are able to do," he added.

Mr McKeon said there is a budget of €102 million for the social housing investment programme and energy retrofits of €3.3 million and social housing voids funding of almost €1 million for the three year period.

The capital budget was unanimously accepted and approved by councillors.