FURTHER EVIDENCE of a massive regional imbalance in the collection of State revenue has emerged in figures supplied by the Department of Finance.
Broken down on a county-by-county basis, the statistics show a huge disparity between the amount of tax collected in Co Dublin compared with the rest of the State.
Although the existence of an imbalance is a long-established fact of Irish economic life, the latest figures illustrate the disparity in stark detail.
The figures, provided to Fine Gael's enterprise, trade and employment spokesman Leo Varadkar, show a massive increase in the amount of value added tax (VAT) collected in Dublin over recent years.
Between 2003 and 2006, the latest years for which figures were available, the amount of VAT collected in Dublin rose from €4.9 billion to €6.7 billion. During the same period, the VAT figures for Co Leitrim went from €18.4 million to €25.2 million, the lowest in the State.
Capital gains tax figures for 2003-06 show the amount collected in Dublin increased almost twofold, from €610 million to €1,166 million. Meanwhile, Co Longford, for example, went from €3.4 million to €11 million, one of the lowest in the State. Reflecting the property boom, the overall capital gains tax take rose from €1.44 billion to €3.1 billion over the period.
Corporation tax collected in Co Dublin rose from €3.45 billion in 2003 to €4.45 billion in the 2003-06 period. To some extent, this reflects that fact that so many companies have their headquarters or registered address in Dublin.
Among other heavily-populated counties, Cork's corporation tax take increased from €382 million to €620 million and Galway's rose from €69 million to €122 million. By contrast, the amount collected in Co Roscommon went from €4.8 million to €9.5 million.
With regard to Pay As You Earn, percentage figures compiled by Mr Varadkar show that Co Dublin contributed 49.6 per cent of the total amount of PAYE in 2006 compared to 8.1 per cent for Cork, 4.7 per cent for Galway and 0.4 per cent for Co Laois.
There is a sharp disparity between Dublin and its surrounding "commuter counties". In 2006, Kildare provided 3.11 per cent of total PAYE, Louth 1.49 per cent, Meath 2.09 per cent and Wicklow 1.54 per cent.
In the non-PAYE sector, including self-employed, farmers and many professionals, a comparatively low 38.27 per cent was raised in Dublin, with 10.75 per cent from Cork but only 0.73 per cent from Monaghan. Dublin's population in the 2006 census was almost 1.19 million, according to the Central Statistics Office. Population figures for other counties included: Cork 0.48 million; Galway 232,000; Meath 163,000; Kildare 186,000; Wicklow 126,000; Louth 111,000; Westmeath 79,000; Laois 67,000; Roscommon 59,000; Monaghan 56,000; Longford 34,000; Leitrim 29,000.
Mr Varadkar, who represents Dublin West, said: "It is pretty obvious, four years after decentralisation and the National Spatial Strategy, that both projects appear to be largely a fantasy and aren't having any major effect on regional development or on the wealth across the country.
"The second thing is, it very much shows up the problems that, as people in commuter counties would argue, there aren't actually any jobs in the commuter counties, that the population of Meath and Kildare is very high but the figures show that not very much PAYE tax is coming in.
"That's giving rise to congestion and a lot of the problems that we have in Dublin and you can't really turn that around unless you're prepared to provide jobs in places like Navan, for example."
While so much of the tax was paid in the county "people in Dublin have the most-crowded schools, the worst traffic, the fewest gardaí per capita", he said.