This article is from page 13 of the 2009-12-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 13 JPG
ENNIS Town Council has main- tained commercial rates at the current level of 65.45 per cent in its budget for PAUnTeR
It follows similar moves taken by Clare County Council and Shannon Town Council to also freeze rate lev- els.
Town Manager, Ger Dollard an-
nounced the decision at Ennis Town Council’s annual budget meeting last week. The decision is expected to serve as a boost to local business representatives who had _ lobbied the council to cut or freeze rates at present levels.
Mr Dollard also announced a reduc- tion in council spending for the year ahead and stated that there had been a significant reduction in income lev-
els. In his report, Mr Dollard stated, “The budget as presented provides for commercial rates to be maintained at the 2009 level and for parking charg- es also to remain at 2009 levels. The current rate for Ennis is at the lower end of the scale relative to similar sized towns around the country.
He added, “The draft budget pro- poses expenditure of €12,143,853 million, which is a reduction on the
amount provided in the budget for 2009. Overall income shows a sig- nificant reduction with a fall in in- come levels evident in many service areas and in Local Government Fund Grant Allocation. The provision for the County Demand in the budget is €2,983,000 which is a one per cent increase on 2009.
Welcoming the budget, Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) urged the council to
pursue government funding in order to purchase land for the development of local authority housing.
Cllr Michael Guillfoyle (Ind) urged people to recognise that the council did not have “pocketfuls of money” to spend in the year ahead.
Cllr Mary Howard (FG) acknow- eldged the difficult financial circum- stances in which the council had pre- pared its budget.