County council gets €85m in rates as city takes issue

A RECORD €85.7 million in commercial rates was collected by Cork County Council in 2007 and they estimate the figure will peak this year to €94m, but thereafter could fall due to an expected downturn in the economy.

The rates levied on businesses are vital in running many of the local authority’s services. As a result some county councillors yesterday expressed concern that Cork City Council’s attempt to extend its boundary into rate ‘cash cow’ areas could seriously damage the county council’s ability to fund its services in the future.

The city council was again warned ‘hands-off’ when County Cllr Maurice Ahern (FF) said it wanted to take control of major rate-paying areas in the county, such as Ringaskiddy, Little Island and Carrigtwohill.

“The city council is trying to zone in on these industrial areas. We need to keep an eye on that. I’ve no problem giving them the likes of Douglas instead,” Cllr Ahern said.

Ger Power, the county council’s head of finance, reported that rates collected last year were up nearly 10% on 2006.

He said some businesses still owed the council a combined €3.288m in rates from 2007. While this was slightly higher than 2006, he said it still represented a collection rate of 96.61%.

County manager Martin Riordan said it was vital that the rate collection office continued to bring in as much money as it could to finance many of the council’s services like sewerage, water and public lighting.

However, Mr Riordan warned: “With a view to the way the economic situation could be, it will be difficult to justify rates rises. It could be a difficult couple of years ahead.”

He said that rates alone wouldn’t be able to pay for all services and the financing of local authorities needed to be overhauled.

Mr Power said the healthy level of the rate base was essentially due to existing businesses growing, rather than new ones coming in.

He said since 2000 rate payers in the county had increased by 14%, but the rates bill jumped by 100%.

Mr Riordan said a 1% drop in rate collection figures represented around 1m and this would dent the provision of services.

Cllr Tomas Ryan (FG) said he was concerned that a lot of money was still outstanding, while Cllr Noel Harrington (FG) and Cllr Donal O’Rourke (FF) said they were concerned that some smaller businesses were finding it hard to pay.

Mr Power said the council would always pursue rates it deemed as “collectable.”

He said while his staff were “sympathetic to genuine needs”, anyone who was trying to pull the wool over the council’s eyes were likely to find themselves before the courts.

Meanwhile, Cllr Joe Carroll (FF) said that a lot of new businesses were locating just outside of town centres and while town councils might be providing them with services, rates were going into county council coffers.

“I’d like to see an increase in contributions from the county council to the town councils because of this,” Cllr Carroll said.