‘ County paralysed by cuts’
Fine Gael Deputy Tony McLoughlin has pleaded with his Ministerial colleague, Simon Coveney that Sligo County Council has been set an impossible task in being asked to “cut its way back to economic prosperity.”
Deputy McLoughlin has written to the Minister for Housing Planning and Local Government seeking a meeting with him and Council Chief Executive Ciaran Hayes in the wake of the closure of Sligo’s Central Library on Saturday stating that the council cannot take any more cuts.
Deputy McLoughlin said: “County Sligo has being given an impossible task of trying to cut its way back to economic prosperity. “As of today, staff reductions in the Council stands at 37%. This is a reduction in 237 staff since the peak of 2008.
“These reductions have left the Council in a critical state of paralysis and from my dealings with the Council on a daily bases, I can see that it simply can not take any more cuts or reductions to its staffing numbers, let alone continue to offer its current services at this level. “It simply can not continue in this way.” Deputy McLoughlin says the cuts have effected: • Co. Sligo’s main central library, • The HAP Payments Schemes - applications are taking well over a month in many cases to be registered and issued for approval, ultimately delaying people from finding housing,
• The Council’s ability to reach its targets for implementing the Government’s Housing Capital Program, which has led to a serious rise in the number of people identifying as homeless and also a shortage of rental properties, • The Council’s Laboratory which was forced to close, • The Council’s Housing Department’s public office, which is now closed to the public from 1pm.
• The Councils ability to maintain our local roads, as there are not enough road workers to conduct basic road maintenance throughout the County, in fact 12 temporary staff are due to be let go shortly which will make the situation even worse,
• The Councils ability to maintain its general cleanness and upkeep of our towns as our outdoor staff is down from 139 to 79 with a further 15 set to go,
• The Councils ability to tackle illegal dumping as there has been no litter warden working over the last number of months.
• The Councils tourism promotion ability and its ability to bid for and conduct capital tourism projects,
• The Councils ability and effectiveness at bidding for national infrastructure funding for local projects, which is leading to Sligo missing out on its fair share of funding. You will recall the instance with Rosses Point Pier, I contacted you about in your previous ministry and the issue that it did not have planning in place due to staff shortages,
• The ability for the Council to complete its 8 stages of required works on the now accelerated € 100 Million ‘ N4 Collooney to Castlebaldwin’ TII Scheme. I fear this project could be delayed and that capital funding might be missed in 2017,
“Whilst, I do understand the need for every Local Authority to be able to balance its books, I must highlight that after a very difficult period of cuts, re- organisation and technological efficiencies, the Council has now achieved this feat against the back drop of sluggish growth in the local economy together with many other local difficulties and I am please to be able to say that it is now returning an annual revenue surplus. The legendary mistakes of the past, which were responsible for the Council’s large amount of debt, and which make Sligo’s financial problems so obvious, have now been rectified and new process are in place to ensure that these large annual deficits which it was returning under previous managers cannot occur into the future,” said Deputy McLoughlin.
He added: “However, achieving the financial requirements set down by your Department in the Financial Plan is seriously strangling County Sligo and is limiting our opportunity to attempt to attract gains from the minimal recovery which is under way in the North West and it is severely limiting our efforts to grow our way out of our financial predicament. In Sligo we do not have many large multinational industries paying high amounts of rates and we also have the highest amount of empty retail units in the country again in 2016. The economic recovery underway nationally is not as strong in Sligo.
“On this basis, I believe that special consideration should be given to Sligo as we now face even more uncertainty in the future due to Brexit and falling tourism numbers and an eventual loss of revenue.”
Deputy McLoughlin told the Minister that he believed that we have now reached breaking point with regard to this situation.