€2.9m local government funding is ‘peanuts’

Angry scenes are expected at next Monday’s Cork County Council meeting after it emerged the local authority only got a fraction of what other counties got from the Government to run its services.

Standing orders are expected to be suspended at the meeting by Fianna Fáil after it emerged the council only received €2.9m from the Local Government Fund (LGF) — nearly eight times less than Tipperary.

Cllr Alan Coleman, the Fianna Fáil leader on the council, said in comparison, the new, combined councils in Tipperary, Waterford, and Limerick received €22.7m, €16.5m, and €16.5m respectively. Cork City Council got €8.5m.

The paltry figure, which Mr Coleman descried as “peanuts,” was given to Cork County Council only hours before its budget meeting last month.

That put then county manager Martin Riordan in an awkward spot as he had already had to try and balance the books without knowing how much he was getting from the LGF. That caused anger, with a number of councillors criticising Environment Minister Phil Hogan for delaying the LGF announcement to the last minute. To balance the books, Mr Riordan was eventually forced to dip into the council’s reserves.

Mr Coleman said in effect, the €2.9m “actually translated into nothing”.

He said no LGF grants were being made this year to town councils — which are due to be abolished in the summer. “They used to get separate allocations before. But now we will have to top up money for the nine town councils we have in the county. So this will mean the county council itself effectively got nothing from the LGF.”

He said he believes that Cork County Council was penalised by the Government because it had a larger proportion of income from ratepayers than the adjoining counties. The council decided not to increase rates for a seventh year in a row, despite Mr Riordan saying at one stage that he might have to do so if the LGF was reduced.

“If funding from central government continues to be cut then I don’t see any alternative but for the council to hit the ratepayers more. Many are already struggling and instead of putting up rates we should actually be reducing them,” said Mr Coleman.