Budget could lessen blow for county

Cork County Council may be forced to make cuts to services following a vote to freeze Local Property Tax for 2 years, despite doing “relatively well” in the national budget.

That’s according to Dr Aodh Quinlivan, Director of the Centre for Local and Regional Governance at UCC, who said the decision of the councillors was partly based on an assumption that the Government would intervene by way of Budget 2023.

In Tuesday’s Budget unveiling, the Government announced an increase of €108 million in core funding through the Local Government Fund, which is to be shared across Ireland’s 31 councils.

However, Dr Quinlivan said the announcement that local authorities will now retain 100% of Local Property Tax (LPT) collected may be of even greater importance.

“Previously, local authorities retained 80%, with the balance going into an equalisation fund. All equalisation funding is now to be met by the exchequer. It is difficult to precisely assess the impact of Budget 2023 on Cork County Council,” said Dr Quinlivan.

He continued: “The bottom line is that services have to be funded and the council may be forced to make some cuts. However, in light of the budget announcements, these cuts may be less severe than council management envisaged at the start of the week.”

At Monday’s full meeting of Cork County Council, the council executive issued a report to elected members outlining projected finances for 2023. The report strongly urged elected members to vote to increase LPT from 7.5% to 15% for 2023 in order to increase income.

The report, which showed a predicted shortfall of €16.9 million between income and expenditure for 2023, stated that if significant additional income was not found, many crucial services across the county would be subject to cuts.

However, the vast majority of councillors insisted that it would not be appropriate to put any further financial bourdon on their constituents as they continue to endure the cost of living crises.

Speaking at the meeting, Mayor of the County of Cork, Cllr Danny Collins, described the report as “frightening” but said he could not ask the people of Cork to pay more than they already are. He also said the central government should step in and provide funding for the county.

In addition, Independent Cllr Declan Hurley suggested that LPT should remain frozen at 7.5 for 2 years rather than 1 as a way of offering reassurance to constituents.

“I think the fact that our director of finance has to come in here and present a report like that says there is something drastically wrong with local government funding,” said Cllr Hurley.

He added: “We are the biggest local authority in the country and we seem to be cash strapped year after year. It clearly shows how starved and neglected the Government has left local authorities such as Cork County Council.”

Cork County Council’s 2023 Budget is set to be announced in November. In 2021, elected members voted to keep the LPT at 7.5% for 2022.