'Disappointing' that Cork County Council is falling behind with business payments, says minister

Enterprise Minister Peter Burke said that he had sought meetings with council officials on the issue but had been rebuffed. Picture: Damien Storan

It is "disappointing" that Cork County Council is falling behind business payments, Enterprise Minister Peter Burke has told the Seanad.

Cork County Council was last month among a number of local authorities that were criticised by Enterprise Minister Peter Burke for the speed of its payments under the Increased Cost of Business (ICOB) grant.

The council told the Irish Examiner last month that it "has allocated significant resources to this project to ensure businesses will receive payment in a timely manner".

However, in the Seanad on Tuesday, Mr Burke said that in the case of Cork County Council, 1,029 SMEs have received a grant, representing about €2m worth of payments under the €257m scheme. Mr Burke said that "Cork County Council is working on processing the remaining 4,901 properties that have registered for the grant".

Mr Burke said that he had sought meetings with council officials on the issue but had been rebuffed.

"In relation to Cork County Council, it is disappointing that they are lagging behind the rest of local authority network.

"I was in Cork last Thursday and offered to meet with the executive or those administering the grant and unfortunately, they were unavailable to meet. I asked to meet with a team who are doing the actual administration which I think is very important, but unfortunately they were not available to meet either.

"I raised my concerns with the CCMA [County and City Management Association] and I know that Moira Murrell, the new chief executive took office yesterday and she has assured me of her full cooperation in relation to this. Unfortunately and I say this in no arrogant way, Government ministers have very little time when you are going to a constituency, you really need the cooperation of the local authority network to work with you."

'Shocking'

Senator Tim Lombard, who raised the matter in the Seanad, said that the figures were "shocking".

"If we are dealing with a scenario that they have only paid 1,000 of the potential 6,000 grants and we gave a commitment as a people and as a Government that this would be paid by the end of April, start of May, that is absolutely shocking. The accountability here is frightening for me. Small businesses are on their knees. The money is in the bank account.

"There is potentially €25m waiting at the moment to be paid out. Two grants have been paid out from the local authority in Cork itself and 90% have been paid out across the country. We have a problem here regarding how this happened. I am deeply frustrated by this. It is not the Minister's fault because he made the money available, but it is deeply frustrating that the local authority has left the businesses of Cork hanging for the money. It is just not good enough."

Mr Lombard said that the delay in payments could see businesses go to the wall, while Mr Burke said that he had received a text message from the acting chief executive of Cork County Council "stating that she was available to have a phone conversation".

"My view is that we had enough virtual meetings during the Covid pandemic. When I go into a constituency, I want to sit down with the team, talk to them in person and help them, with a view to being proactive."