Call for increased Government funding to avoid potential increase to Cork city commercial rates

A Cork city councillor is to propose a motion at next Monday’s council meeting appealing to central Government for more funding in order to avoid a potential 3% increase in commercial rates for city traders.

Fine Gael general election candidate for Cork South Central, Shane O’Callaghan, told The Echo he was “totally opposed to any increase in commercial rates”.

“Just this weekend, the great Cork institution that is Jackie Lennox’s announced their closure, which is a terrible loss to the city,” he said.

 “The owners cited one of their reasons was the huge pressures facing small businesses in Ireland at the moment.

“An increase in rates would be coming at the complete wrong time — businesses are already experiencing extra costs and pressures such as the cost of energy and rising cost of materials.”

Fianna Fáil councillor Sean Martin, chair of Cork City Council’s finance committee, told The Echo that a 3% rate increase was “one option being discussed”, saying: “We’re considering a rates increase and how we could do that so that the people on the bottom are not affected greater than the people at the top.”

Unacceptable

Mr O’Callaghan said: “I think it’s unacceptable — I would be voting against any such proposal, and I’m confident my Fine Gael colleagues would also vote against it.”

He said that the proposal of a 3% rates increase does not surprise him, given ongoing budgetary constraints on Cork City Council due to index-linked money it must pay to Cork County Council under the terms of the 2019 boundary extension.

“I’ve been warning that something like this was going to happen since last year because of the extra money city council has to pay to county council, which goes up with inflation."

The Department of Housing and Local Government increased baseline funding to every local authority last year. However, Cork City got the lowest possible funding increase, at €1.5m, while Cork County Council were awarded an extra €10m.

“I’ve had multiple motions passed in council calling on Minister Darragh O’Brien to allocate extra baseline funding to cover the extra money, but his only response was to suggest I put my query to the oversight committee,” said Mr O’Callaghan.

“When I asked in council meeting who was in this committee, I was told it doesn’t exist anymore. He’s failed to heed our pleas, and the chickens are coming home to roost.”

Mr O’Callaghan said he will be tabling another motion on Monday calling for a higher rate of baseline funding in the hopes of avoiding putting extra costs onto businesses.

The Echo contacted Cork City Council for comment.