Related Stories

• Minister Hayes warns on scam re Revenue refunds
  
  
• Mitchelstown CBS students tour Glennon Brothers sawmill
  
  
• Why employers will be hoping employees give up smoking this January
  
  
• Cutting the carbon footprint – Mitchelstown schools join forces with the WOW factor!
  
  
• UCC to weather storm at climate change event in Cork
  
  
• Senator Gilroy in Fermoy to muster support for European bid
  
  
• Mitchelstown – beaming with pride following Pride in Our Community award
  
  
• Lismore councillor calls for legislation to outlaw below-cost sale of veg
  
  
• A look back to January 1993 in The Avondhu
  
  
• Roches ran for Temple Street
  
  
• The Chain Gang strip back the joy of Women’s Little Christmas in Mitchelstown
  
  
• New manager for Livinghealth Gym, Mitchelstown
  
  

Fermoy Town Council want to deliver free parking in the town’s car parks to the people of Fermoy! Cue much discussion and debate.

Your budget is stretched to breaking point and you have bills to pay - the important ones like electricity, gas, oil, telephone, refuse collection. But a favourite relative has a birthday coming up and you'd really like to splash out on an expensive gift that you know will impress him or her and endear you to them. What to do?

That was the kind of dilemma faced by Fermoy Town Council on Monday evening. Last year had been a challenging year for them financially, Town Manager Niall Healy told them. Their income is under serious pressure. Their rates are down significantly. The NPPR levy on second home owners is gone and with it the €100K it brought in.

They have to bear the cost of the €18,270 in property tax on their 203 houses themselves or bite the bullet and pass the charge on to tenants, raising their rent by approximately €2 a week, something they won't relish doing, especially as it was hoped to keep rents at last year's levels.

The town manager isn't in favour of that option either, he's recommending the town council absorb the cost if at all possible. Core services have to be maintained while at the same time not putting up commercial rates on hard pressed business owners. There should be no increase in leisure centre charges.

But oh how they wanted to deliver free parking in the town's car parks to the people of Fermoy. It would be their legacy. Besides, they believe, it is imperative to the town's sustainability. Cue much discussion and debate. Little real number-crunching though. Anyone with an abacus could have told them expenditure exceeding income meant something had to give.

New Town Manager Niall Healy even gave them a little slideshow to show how the sums worked.

They'd already been told that Cork County Council was making a major concession to them in reducing the County Charge of €395,000 by €135,000 to get them out of a hole and balance their budget. There was a stipulation attached though, they couldn't go blowing the money on things like … well, free car parking.

The town manager used a colourful analogy at a meeting the previous week to impress upon them the reason why they couldn't just lash out the money saved on other things. He likened it to a beggar having sought donations then going and squandering the money in the pub.

Cllr Noel McCarthy said he couldn't support the budget. "We have a responsibility to make the best budget we possibly can," he stressed. Cllr John Murphy said he couldn't support it either, unless there was free car parking in car parks. Cllr Michael Hanley felt the same and said that any consequent deficit they incur should be regarded as an investment in Fermoy. Mayor Olive Corcoran and Cllrs Colette Dolan-Moore and Tadhg O'Donovan felt similar. Cllr Pa O'Driscoll was absent. Cllr Seamus Coleman's was the only dissenting voice.

The manager pointed out that it'd be "practically impossible" to introduce free car parking for the year without reducing services. Things like street cleaning, the maintenance of the town park and other services would have to be reduced.

Cllr Seamus Coleman said parking was just one aspect of their budget and there was a plethora of other issues in Fermoy that need to be addressed. "Parking is just one. Now it seems to be the be-all and end-all," he charged. He felt their ire should be directed at Minister Phil Hogan who'd said no local authority would be worse off as a result of Government measures but that turned out not to be true and cuts now need to be made.

"If parking is a red line issue we might as well go home," he told his colleagues, pointing out that they were all getting calls from people suffering as a result of the housing maintenance grants being cut in the Budget. "The red line issue for me is not parking, it's the Government's failure to give us enough money," he told them. He also pointed out they had made numerous payments which, through no fault of their own, "are of no benefit to Fermoy."

Cllr Colette Dolan-Moore asked about the town hall building they were sitting in and was told they owned a third of it. The Courts Service and Cork County Council own the other two thirds. She wanted to know if they could extend the period of repayment of the loan they'd taken out to refurbish it. She was told by the Town Clerk that she had checked and they couldn't.

With no chance of flogging the building or pushing out their loan, Cllr Dolan-Moore focused instead on the €11,000 put aside for bank charges, based on last year's charges, saying they were 'crazy'. The town manager responded by saying they were probably riding the crest of a wave for a while with them but things are different now. Mayor Olive Corcoran grumbled about them getting no money from the property tax because its now going to Irish Water.

It was Cllr Noel McCarthy who said Fermoy is a special case because of having to endure the flood works, and that should be recognised by the county council relaxing the veto regarding the reduction in the County Charge and how it could be used.

Members felt it was harsh and that they were being held to ransom. It was at this point that the issue of fish pass works funding arose and putting that money towards free parking was suggested. (A report on that aspect of the discussion is carried elsewhere in this newspaper.)

If they could demonstrate that they could come up with €100,000 they could argue their case for Fermoy to be treated as a special case to the county council, the town manager said.

Cllr Tadhg O'Donovan proposed "putting a gun to the head of the county council. We want them to lift the veto. If we do they might look far more enthusiastically at where the money could be saved," he said. "The county council is trying to get us out of a hole," the town manager replied. "They're trying to tell us our business," Cllr O'Donovan retorted. He proposed they adjourn the meeting and go back to the county council seeking to have the veto lifted.

Cllr Coleman, however, wanted a second proposal agreed; that they write to Minister Hogan challenging him for saying no local authority would be worse off when they clearly were. It was agreed to write to him, taking him to task on the matter and it was also agreed to adjourn the meeting and have the town manager try to get the veto lifted after which they'd look at the figures again.

Even as he was agreeing to do so the manager was trying to bring the members round. "Seven of the Cork county towns didn't get this help!" he said about the reduction they'd negotiated on the County Charge.

"But didn't have our circumstances!" was shouted back.

The majority of members appear determined to deliver free parking in Fermoy's car parks. But at what cost to other services and projects? It remains to be seen.

blog comments powered by Disqus