Grim news as income drop forces new Council cuts

Date Published: 15-Jul-2010

by Frank Farragher

THE City Council is facing into a major financial crisis for the second half of the year with rates payments in arrears by an estimated €4m while the Town Hall Theatre and Leisureland are also facing major losses.

The City Council’s Head of Finance, Edel McCormack, has spelt out the grim news on the city’s public finances in a letter circulated to councillors last week.

Rates income for the first half of the year – at €11.7m – is, according to the Head of Finance, ‘well below the anticipated level’. The Galway City Tribune has learned that the local authority would have expected to have ‘pulled in’ over €15m from rates by the end of June.

The recession though is continuing to bite hard on a number of fronts with footfall well down on the City Council’s two major entertainment and leisure outlets – the Town Hall Theatre and the Leisureland complex in Salthill.

Now the City Council are recommending several main areas of savings to be undertaken before the end of the year. These are:

• A cut in the roads programme of €600,000, with cutbacks on wide number of projects and some work deferrals to next year.

• Savings of €500,000 to be made at the Town Hall Theatre and €360,000 at Leisureland through cutbacks in maintenance expenditure and ‘curtailments of staff duties’.

• Cuts of €320,000 to be made in the housing and environment departments in reduced working hours and a reduction in maintenance works.

• A saving of €110,000 to be made in the planning department and €100,000 in the parks budget.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune