€750K COUNCIL ROW
A leading civil servant says he made no commitment to pay €750,000 to Sligo County Council - a direct contradiction to what its Chief Executive Ciaran Hayes recalls.
Now, there is a call being made to have a special meeting of the council in January to discuss the matter.
Controversy has dragged on now for weeks over what was said at a meeting between officials, councillors and Mr Hayes in Dublin in September last year.
Last week, Mr Hayes insisted he was standing over his claims that he had been given a verbal commitment on the additional funding.
However, in an email to councillor Decaln Bree, civil servant, Paul Lemass the Assistant Secretary at the Department of the Housing, Planning and Local Government who is overseeing the council’s budgetary plans over the past couple of years, said no commitment was given to Mr Hayes.
Mr Lemass stated: “I can confirm that no commitment to remit the €750,000 referred to in your email was given to Ciaran Hayes, either by myself or by the Secretary General, at a meeting on the 7 th of September 2016 which was attended by the Secretary General of the Department as well as Ciaran Hayes, Pat Gallagher of the CCMA, and myself.”
Councillors learned in June 2015 that the €750,000 Local Government Fund allocation, which had been withdrawn by the Minister, was no longer available.
Cllr Bree said the correspondence from the Department was damning and was unprecedented.
“As far back as June 2015 when a deputation of councillors met with Mr Lemass it was very clear to us that the €750,000 was not available.
“We all knew the €750,000 was conditional on a realistic financial plan being agreed between the Department and the Council before the end 2014. Because of the failure of the Council management to submit a sustainable plan the Minister had withdrawn the €750,000 earlier in the year.
“However the Department and Mr Lemass did confirm that a €1 million bailout grant would be provided to the Council each year from 2015 conditional on targets being met and subject to acceptable audited accounts being submitted, and they have been delivering on that commitment each year.
“Sligo County Council is the only council in the country which is receiving bailout money and now we have this debacle which puts us on a collision course with the Department.
“I have consistently pointed out that there is a lack of confidence or trust with regard to the ability of the management of the County Council to deal with its financial difficulties and this mess will only further undermine what little confidence the Department has.
“I will be asking the Cathaoirleach of the Council to consider calling a special meeting of the Council or alternatively to suspend standing orders at the commencement of the January meeting so as to allow us to deal with this crisis.”