FG councillors defy party on service charge vote

FINE GAEL members of Dublin City Council are set to defy a senior party order to vote against large increases in service charges.

Fine Gael councillors are backing Dublin City Manager John Fitzgerald’s controversial budget which will see refuse charges increased by almost 30% - a move being opposed by the Labour Party and Independents.

But the FG party leadership has asked council members to play hardball with local authority budgets in order to lay the blame for the increased levies squarely at the door of the Government parties.

In a confidential letter to FG councillors, sanctioned by the party leadership, FG environment spokesman Bernard Allen says the Government had drained local government by reducing central funding after removing the decision-making abilities of local authorities.

“This year the FF/PD Government have effectively cut Local Authority allocations resulting in councils being forced to supplement their income with local charges,” the letter, obtained by the Irish Examiner, says.

The reduction in central funding has left councillors facing the choice of making up the cutback by rising charges or cutting back on services, Mr Allen says in the letter.

“I am asking that your Fine Gael group not support any unreasonable increases in refuse charges and commercial rates in order to substitute for the effective reduction in the Local Government Fund allocation from this Government,” the letter states.

Accepting that circumstances will vary, Mr Allen says FG must question and oppose the imposition of a higher level of taxation through the local charges.

Dublin City Council have less than a week to resolve their differences or face dissolution and any other city or county councils which have yet to agree their budgets only have until next Monday to sort out their problems.

Mr Allen insisted the letter was not a party directive as it acknowledged it was a matter for each council grouping to decide upon their own tactics.

Stating that each grouping would have their own arrangements, he said that on Cork City Council the FG councillors voted en bloc against the estimates forcing Labour and Independent councillors to abstain in order for the budget to be passed.

“It is putting the onus on Fianna Fáil and the PDs to implement these harsh measures. In some cases they are 30% or 40% rises. Let the Government parties take the responsibility for their mismanagement of the exchequer finances,” he said.