CRISIS AVERTED AS BUDGET PASSED
NEW SUB COMMITTEE TO BE SET UP TO IMPROVE RELATIONS
A week is a long time in politics and the mood in County Hall couldn’t have been more different on Tuesday evening when Louth councillors gathered to discuss the annual budget for a second time.
Behind the scene discussions led to a conciliatory mood or maybe it was the threat of an unwanted local election or a commissioner being appointed to take over their jobs which led to councillors eventually adopting the budget.
Chairman Cllr Colm Markey said that legal advice had been sought which ruled that the decision taken at the previous meeting to reject the draft budget as presented by Chief Executive Joan Martin was invalid and he was recommending that they resume the budget meeting.
If they didn’t succeed in passing a budget within the time frame allowed, he warned:‘a budget from the Minister will be in the post.’
He noted that ‘a lot of concerns and issues not related to the budget’ had been raised at the previous meeting when councillors had complained about lack of communication by management. He had sat down with the whips from the various political groupings on the council and management and proposed setting up a sub committee to look at those issues. ‘We are trying to make Louth County Council work better together’, he said, expressing confidence that they would be able to work things out.
This was welcomed by Cllr Pio Smith who said it was ‘a good move’ which would give everyone the opportunity to say what they feel is working and not working.’
Cllr Tommy Byrne said he always found staff very helpful and was prepared to support the budget while fellow Drogheda councillor Frank Godfrey blamed the Government as ‘ the real issue is lack of funding.’
Cllr Mark Dearey said they needed to know that the executive was committed to the process of improving communications with the members.
Chief Executive Joan Martin assured him that she had agreed to the setting up of the sub committee.
With those troubled waters smoothed over, councillors got down to the business of agreeing a budget for the coming year.
Chief Executive Joan Martin warned them that they had little wriggle room as’ the budget is so bared back, thinned down and back to the bone’ that only areas where they could make cuts in order to get the funds they wanted was in discretionary spending on library books, tidy towns, etc
While Sinn Fein councillors stood their ground in opposing the budget, other councillors engaged in the process of introducing amendments to tailor it to accommodate spending which they felt should be prioritised.
Cllr Mark Dearey once again raised his concerns about the length of time it was taking to converge the rates in the urban and rural areas, arguing that the quicker they did it, the better it would be for the council in the long term as it would allow them take back control,
Ms Martin told him that they were not in a position to bring down the urban rates due to the economic situation and she felt she had put forward the best budget she could with the money available.
Cllr Pio Smith proposed that money taken from the areas such as tourism promotion, town twinning and economic development so that €35,000 could be given to homeless and care centres in the municipal district committee areas of Dundalk, Drogheda and Ardee.
This proposal was carried while a proposal by Cllr Paul Bell to allocate additional funding for glass bottle banks was defeated as was a proposal by Cllr Kevin Callan to restore plastic recycling at bring banks.
It was also agreed that funds from the allocation for attendances at conferences would be transferred to funding for community groups.
After almost three hours of debate, the crisis of the previous week was put to bed as the majority of councillors voted in favour of the budget as amended.
Independent councillors Kevin Callan and Maeve Yore joined Sinn Fein councillors Anne Campbell, Edel Corrigan, Tom Cunningham, Kenneth Flood, Pearse McGeough, Ruairi O’Murchu, Tomas Sharek and David Saurin in voting against the budget.
The budget was supported by councillors Paul Bell and Pio Smith (Labour), Richie Culhane, Maria Doyle, Colm Markey, Dolores Minogue, John McGahon and Oliver Tully (Fine Gael), Marianne Butler and Mark Dearey (Green Party), Frank Godfrey (Independent) and Thomas Byrne, Conor Keelan, Liam Reilly and Peter Savage (Fianna Fail).