County council will not waive rates for Midleton businesses unless reimbursed by Government

CORK County Council’s temporary chief executive Valerie O’Sullivan has said the council will work with businesses in Midleton who have difficulty paying their rates, but it would not be introducing a waiver of rates for those impacted by flooding unless it is reimbursed by central Government to do so.

Ms O’Sullivan made the comments in response to calls from Fine Gael councillor Susan McCarthy to introduce a rates waiver to help Midleton businesses at risk of closing in the wake of last week’s devastating floods.

Ms McCarthy, who co-owns McCarthy’s Newsagents with her husband Fergus, said that a rates waiver could be the difference between a business’ demise and survival.

Responding, Ms O’Sullivan said: “We will work with any business who has difficulty paying rates. If the Government brings out a scheme [to reimburse rates] we will fully support it, provided we are reimbursed. 

"We can’t do this without losing any more income. However, we will work with people who are in trouble in terms of paying.”

Ms McCarthy said that she hoped to see a 100% rates waiver introduced for this year.

She said: “We would be going for the full 100% waiver this year and then it would be staggered other years to bring it back to normal, just to give people that little bit of breathing space... 

"They [the businesses] need this, and in the scheme of things they don’t form a huge amount of the rates collected. However, any deficit that the council suffers would have to be recouped”.

She added: “It’s really important that Midleton businesses are supported because they are the lifeblood of the town.

“A lot of them don’t have insurance. The assistance coming from the Red Cross isn’t even going to skim the surface of some of the damages. Some businesses were hit on a massive scale.”