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Free parking in Fermoy off-street car parks has been operating since last August, paid for by the OPW as a goodwill gesture while the flood works are ongoing. Photo: Ellen Lynch

Fermoy Town Council held out on passing their annual budget on Monday evening in a bid to force Cork County Council to lift a veto they'd imposed on bail-out funding they'd given to help them balance their budget. Town councillors wanted the condition that the money only be used to balance their budget and maintain core services lifted, to help them find the money to provide free parking in off-street car parks for the whole of this year.

Free parking in off-street car parks has been operating since last August, paid for by the OPW as a goodwill gesture while the flood works are ongoing. It was welcomed by Fermoy Business Action Group, traders and shoppers who were all anxious to see it continue. So too were most of the town councillors, keenly aware of how popular a move it would be.

The problem is that the charge generates considerable and badly needed income for the town council. Last year it made them €120,000.

Two options were put to councillors on Monday night but neither satisfied them. The first would have seen off-street car parking charges waived for three months, taking them up to the end of the flood works.

The estimated €40,000 in income lost would be made up by increasing the on-street hourly parking rate from 70 cent to €1. Option 2 would have operated for a five month period, until after the abolition of the town council. It'd cost €62,000. It was proposed to make up the loss of income for that by generating €50,000 in parking charges by again increasing the hourly on-street rate and creating more spaces. That still left them €12,000 short. It was suggested that amount could come from their 'festivals and concerts' budget, wiping out that allocation.

Members balked however, holding out for the full year. The bone of contention was the county charge, the annual charge paid to Cork County Council for services it provides to the town council such as fire and library services. It had agreed a reduction of €135,000 from the charge this year of €395,000 to get the town council 'over the line' in balancing its budget. It came however with the condition that it be used for just that reason and shouldn't be considered extra income to be used for other purposes.

Various ways were considered of shaving money from their budget in order to provide the necessary funding to continue to operate the free car parks for the year, including using the €50,000 earmarked for the fish pass in the river but members came up short.

After a long discussion they agreed by way of an amended motion proposed by Cllr Tadhg O'Donovan to suspend the budget meeting and have town manager Niall Healy go back to the county council's finance department and ask them to remove the veto. The town manager agreed to argue that Fermoy has special circumstances due to the difficulties caused by the flood relief works and, as such, deserves extra help.

Members will meet after that to look at the figures again and see where the money can possibly be found.

(Full report on the budget inside)

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