Double vote on Local Property Tax may result in legal challenge

The decision to increase the Local Property Tax for residents in County Galway may become the subject of a legal challenge.

A member of the legal profession, who is also a county councillor, said that the process by which the property tax was increased was beyond anything he could have envisaged taking place within Galway County Council.

Cllr James Charity, who is also a barrister, is set to challenge the procedures by which a 10% property tax increase was applied last week. He said that it took two votes to get what the Council officials wanted.

One vote that was taken agreed that there should be no increase in the property tax. Some councillors expressed confusion over the vote, so another was taken and this eventually resulted in the 10% hike in the rate.

It is understood that the motion not to increase the tax, as proposed by Cllr Donagh Killilea and seconded by Cllr Noel Thomas, was passed by 17 votes to 15. But then some councillors expressed confusion and this resulted in another vote being taken.

Cllr Charity believes that the result of the initial vote should have stood and he said he is now in the process of checking the legality of what happened in the Council chamber.

“I’m not long in politics, but in just two years some of the things I’ve seen have shocked me. However, what happened last week went beyond anything I thought could ever envisage taking place in a Council chamber.

As Galway County Council executives sought an increase of up to 15% in the LPT levied on Galway homeowners, a proposal to make no change in the rate was passed by 17 votes to 15. As a result, any motion concerning LPT levies should not have been permissible for a further six months.

“However, some members complained they were ‘unclear’ about the voting procedure and called for the vote to be re-run. As the chamber descended into chaos, the officials quoted an obscure standing order allowing for the vote to take place again,” Cllr Charity said.

As a result, the motion was voted upon a second time and on this occasion was defeated by four votes.

Following this, a fresh proposal to increase property tax on all County Galway homes by 10% was put forward by Cllr. Jimmy McClearn of FG and seconded by Cllr. Mary Hoade of FF, before being passed by members of both those parties.

“While I haven’t been long in politics, other long-standing members of the Council as well as members of the Press, who have covered these meetings for a significant length of time, have confirmed to me that they have never seen anything like this happen before.

“In my personal opinion, it sets a very dangerous precedent in local politics where someone who does not like the result of a vote can claim the procedure was confusing and have the vote run a second or, perhaps even third, time until the result is altered. This is not democracy.

“From a legal point of view, this is something that I will have to investigate. There is every possibility that this could merit a legal challenge”, Cllr Charity added.