Council to reveal papers establishing town rates

The extracts from council minutes and other documentation which established the municipal rate for 2012 are to be made available to a number of Killarney rate payers yesterday after an application by their solicitor.

Solicitor Padraig O’Connell said he represented a number of businesses in the town who had been summonsed for unpaid rates. One of his clients, a major furniture store, was paying tens of thousands of euro per annum to the council in the yearly rate struck by Killarney Town Council.

An earlier court hearing was told the council in Killarney was this year owed almost €370,000 in unpaid or underpaid rates by a large number of businesses.

The sums varied between €2,000 and €92,000.

Yesterday when the application for a decree against Corcoran’s Furniture and Carpets, Cork Rd, Killarney, came before the court again, Mr O’Connell said he was exploring a challenge to the more than 150-year-old Act, under which the rate was struck in Killarney and elsewhere.

“I am looking for a précis of the town council minutes pertaining to the formation of the rate in question. There is a valid question about the council’s procedures and how they were formulated. My client is very concerned the rate he is paying is in the tens of thousands of pounds per annum.”

Other businesses were paying much smaller sums, the court heard. However, Mr O’Connell said his application was the same and he wanted to examine how the rates were formulated.

Mary Horgan, for the council, offered to make available the minutes of town council meetings and the matter was adjourned by consent.

A number of other applications to do with unpaid rates were adjourned and a small number struck out.