Cash-strapped Council to strip services to ‘minimum’

Date Published: 02-Dec-2010

BY ENDA CUNNINGHAM

Spending on essential local authority services in Galway City is to be stripped to the ‘bare minimum’ next year as the Council desperately attempts to balance its books, the Acting City Manager has warned.

Shocking estimates suggest the extent of the financial woes being faced by the City Council – at the moment it is owed the equivalent of 35% of its 2011 Budget of €86 million through unpaid commercial and water rates, rent and waste collection charges.

Acting Manager Joe O’Neill has admitted the cash-strapped city is facing one of its toughest budgets ever as it attempts to prioritise services and boost revenues against the backdrop of the collapse of the country’s economy and the local authority’s own dwindling coffers.

He warned that proposed spending on services is at a minimum, and further reductions would threaten the delivery of several essential areas.

At the moment, there are outstanding rates of between €18m; unpaid development levies are in the region of €5.4m, while recent figures showed unpaid rent is at €3.07m; unpaid commercial water charges at €2.55m and unpaid waste collection at just under €1.3m (a total of €30.3m).

That figure represents the equivalent of 35.2% of the Council’s proposed expenditure for 2011, although unpaid development levies have no impact on the budget.

The stark forecast came as councillors attempt to pass the local authority Budget for 2011 next Monday, just 24 hours before Finance Minister Brian Lenihan will announce the country’s toughest-ever ‘hairshirt’ budget in the Dáil.

“The focus is on prioritising out essential services, while ensuring that the income streams are sufficient to safeguard the ongoing viability of those services,” said Mr O’Neill.

“In many cases, the level of expenditure provided represents the minimum necessary to support the delivery of essential services and further expenditure reductions cannot be sustained in any of these areas,” the Acting Manager said.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.