Rates and Irish Water. At last Thursday’s Galway County Council budget meeting, Cllr. Anne Rabbitte was asking some tough questions with regards to rates and Irish Water. Cllr Rabbitte said: There is a lot of concern among members of the rural community as to who is going to pay the subsidy to group water schemes? Is Galway County Council going to continue to support Group Water Schemes on an annual basis with grant subsidies for maintenance work, pipe repair work and scheme upgrades as is currently in place? Irish water is not going to substitute hence they are not getting an income from the G.W.S. What does Galway County Council propose to do to address these issues? The answer is that Galway County Council will continue to support GWS. Another unanswered question is that of the lease agreement between Galway County Council and Irish water. Galway County Council have leased their water treatment and their sewage treatment plants, of which there are 38 and 30 respectively- the largest of which being in Tuam and Limminagh, to Irish Water. Cllr. Rabbitte asks: What does this lease agreement entail? Was this a standard lease agreement drawn up by central government and administered locally then between the various County Councils and Irish Water? No different to any other lease agreement landlord tenant arrangement where the County Council lease the property to Irish Water and then they pay rent and are responsible for all the add on charges i.e. lighting, heating, maintenance, rates? This is a semi state for profit business. They have premises in our city, all our major towns (Loughrea, Portumna, Gort, Tuam, Clifden, Oranmore etc) and in our not so major towns (e.g. Woodford); my question is, since Irish Water has taken over, has Galway County Council being charging rates? If not- then why? Why is Irish Water exempt? This would mean that we, as a council, are endorsing a double standard of equality and fairness amongst business (i.e. semi state versus private business who are struggling to make ends meet on daily basis and in many cases their existence is threatened by the cost and high burden of rates which they pay) Cllr. Rabbitte continued her questioning; In the document that is before the Galway County Council Budget 2015 under the headings Irish Water we have Income for €9,262.000 and Expenditure of €13,119.00 0 hence a shortfall of €3.857m approx 4 million. Also we can see clearly under Agriculture, Education, Welfare and Health a huge cut of 3.5 million approx. Under recreation and amenity we see a further cut of 5.2 million. So the very fabric of rural communities i.e. the libraries, the playgrounds, the fire stations, the tidy towns are going to suffer- we as a council are further reducing our support to these communities across the county by 4 million, this is simply not acceptable. We at a municipal level are constantly being told there is nothing in the budget for footpaths, for lights, to address estates that the council built a long number of years ago and are now in serious need of upgrading, in all the areas I mentioned (Shannon Park in Portumna is an example of this). And at the same time, the council are passing the opportunity to collect rates from Irish Water since the 1/9/2014 Surely this is not the case?? I find myself thinking that I must be miss reading this? Cllr Rabbitte said. Think of all the controversy surrounding Irish Water, from the cost to the Tax payer of 5b from 2000 t0 2011 and the current cost of installing meters to the tax payer, the cost of consultant fees and the shocking bonus culture that followed and the re hiring of staff that took very lucrative redundancies from councils and then went back to be rehired by Irish Water. That this was allowed to happen, while at the same time our very qualified young men and women were exodusing the county and country through Shannon and Dublin to Australia and Canada to earn a living is appalling. You really can see how young people are disheartened and disilliousned with government, council, and politicians when it clearly looks like it was jobs for the boys endorsed at a very high level and encouraged right down. What was not expected was the back lash from the people, the people who are left to pick up the pieces and the peoples whose very brothers and sisters have immigrated and in many cases entire families, they people who have been hit by property tax, usc charges and families who are struggling to survive? The response to the above from the executives of Galway Co. Co. Was that the rate valuation office had not yet set a rate for Irish Water, and having rang for clarification to the Ministers office Cllr Rabbite was told when rates would be collected they funds would be returned to central government and they would then decided and would return the funds to Galway co.co. Cllr Rabbitte felt that the council were loosing another executive function of collecting rates and not keeping control . She felt there was very little forward planning and very little knowledge about the whole administration of the rates. She felt that any new business that sets up must provision for rates and its not based on profit, turnover but on square footage of the area and Irish water had a lot of ground in County Council and they had no rate. Rabbitte’s proposal is that Galway County Council seeks clarification from the rates valuation office. On receipt of this satisfactory information she proposes that Galway County Council then apply the rate to Irish Water and subsequently collect the rates from Irish water from the 38 water treatment plants and 30 sewage treatment plants and all of the above funds collected be spent on various projects from Amenity grants, recreation grants, education grants, health and welfare within Galway Co Co.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 12:33:29 +0000
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