Society pays for property charge defaults
Galway County Council has sent letters to all its grant recipients informing them that payments have been suspended because 44% of householders have failed to pay the new home tax.
As politicians fêted Ireland’s Olympic heroes in Dublin, about 173 community groups in Galway — including many sports clubs — were told their grants were being withheld.
These included small sums awarded to boxing, basketball, and other clubs, which in most cases helped to buy clothing and equipment.
Disadvantaged area funding under the Rapid scheme for the towns of Ballinasloe and Tuam has also been suspended.
Household grants to older people and people with disabilities, as well as enterprise grants, have also been cut.
About 60 arts grants were suspended in a move Galway County Council said was regrettable but necessary to deal with a €3.1m reduction in its budget.
Other councils around the country have indicated they are to take similar action as they try to cope with the €61m being cut from their budgets because of non-compliance with the €100 household charge.
Cork County Council plans to defer spending €250,000 on community grant funding until next year as part of its €2.85m in savings.
The measure was outlined in a letter to councillors by the county manager on Monday.
The Department of the Environment wrote to all county and city managers in the past fortnight informing them of adjustments to their budgets as a result of the non-payment of the charge.
Cork County Council’s funding for June to September is down €1.7m, taking into consideration household charge compliance to date; Cork City Council has seen its third-quarter funding adjusted by €421,325; and Donegal County Council has had a €1.6m adjustment to its budget, bringing its total cuts for 2012 to over €4m.
The latest figures show just over 1m households have so far paid the charge, leaving 600,000 who have yet to register to pay.
So far, €99.8m has been collected in charges and late fees — far short of the €160m the Government had expected from the measure.
A department spokesperson said: “As full household charge compliance has not yet been achieved, the minister [Phil Hogan] has had to revise the payment profile of general purpose grants with local authorities receiving a reduction of 5% to 15% in their expected third-quarter payment.”
He said payments for the last quarter of the year would be “revisited in light of the household charge compliance level at that time”.
In a statement, Galway County Council said it “regrets” having to impose cuts, “in particular the impact those cuts will have on the 56% of households who have paid”.
It said the 44% who had not paid “should do so immediately in order that the impact of the cuts on local services and communities can be minimised”.
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