Galway: household charge non-payment lead to reduction in services

Scofflaw

From Galway CoCo:

Galway County Council has identified a substantial number of programmes which must now be withheld in order to allow the Council achieve a balanced budget for 2012 following the recent notification of a reduction of €3.1 million in the Council’s Local Government Grant for the current year.

The reduction in funding to the Council reflects the level of compliance achived to date in relation to payment of the Household Charge and in particular the fact that approximately 44% of the Householders in the County of Galway have yet to pay their Household Charge.

‘The proposed reduction in allocation will result in unpalatable cut to Local Services and communities.’ says Ger Mullarkey, the Council’s Head of Finance. The programmes identified to date as having to be withheld include:

Suspension of housing grants to older people and people with disabilities
Withholding grants for various community initiatives including, burial ground maintenance, amenity grants, community and enterprise grants
Suspension of expenditure on library books
Reduction in resources across a broad range of front-line service areas including:
Litter control
Housing Maintenance
Road maintenance including pothole repairs and verge trimming
Bridge maintenance
Maintenance of public conveniences
Suspension of land drainage works
Funding for tourism projects
Funding to community projects (RAPID) in Tuam and Ballinasloe
Potential delay in recently announced Major Capital Water Services projects.
Fire Service

The council regrets the need to introduce these cuts and in particular the impact such cuts will have on the 56% of households who have paid their Household Charge. However, in the absence of compliance by some householders with the legal requirement to pay the Household Charge, there is no alternative.

The letter received from the Department of Environment, Community & Local Government does however suggest that local authorities may progressively regain their original level of funding if those households who have not yet paid their Household Charge do so.

At a recent meeting of Galway County Council, the Councillors passed a motion requesting those people who have not yet paid the Household Charge to do so now.

The Council acknowledges that more than 56% of the Householders in Galway have paid the charge, which is much appreciated and urges those householders who have not yet paid, to do so immediately, in order that the impact of the cuts on local services and communities can be minimised.

I'm sure there's a thread on this in the Region forum, but it's also a harbinger for other regions. And Galway City would probably have a positive balance to contribute to the pot, so the effect is likely to be worse in other counties:



cordially,
Scofflaw

Ghandee

Don't register, don't pay!

Well done Galway, don't let the bastards get you down!

howamidifferent

I'm sure those who havent paid the household charge will be furious they wont be recieving "Housing Maintenance" from the local authority this year or next

tayto lover

I think our crowd in Louth are way ahead of Galway. They haven't been providing many of those services for years, even before the HHC. Forward planning ?

buckleppin

This strikes me as cutting off your nose to spite your face. I fail to see how removing any of these, but especially

Litter control
Road maintenance including pothole repairs and verge trimming
Funding for tourism projects
Funding to community projects (RAPID) in Tuam and Ballinasloe

will do anything other than increase costs in the long-term. Playing chicken with these crucial services is infuriatingly short-sighted.

Vizzy

buckleppin wrote: »

This strikes me as cutting off your nose to spite your face. I fail to see how removing any of these will do anything other than increase costs in the long-term. Playing chicken with these crucial services is infuriatingly short-sighted.

You are absolutely correct.
However the Councils are funded through a number of sources and approx 25% will come from the Local Government Fund.
Each Council has now been told by the Govt(and ultimately the IMF) to bring back balanced budgets year on year.
The collection of Household charge has only recently been feisted on the Local Authorities but the fallout of people not paying is now expected to be carried by them.
In addition,most Councils will have spent a lot of their money at this time of the year so their wriggle room for reduction of budgets is seriously compromised.

Galwayguy35

If you live in the coutryside or like me in a small village we see no services anyway.
We pay a private company to take away our rubbish, we are on a private water scheme which we fund ourselves and during the big freeze in 2010 the roads were never gritted around here.
Maybe for the citydwellers there will be a reduction in services but paying it would make no difference to us around here.

Scofflaw

Vizzy wrote: »

You are absolutely correct.
However the Councils are funded through a number of sources and approx 25% will come from the Local Government Fund.
Each Council has now been told by the Govt(and ultimately the IMF) to bring back balanced budgets year on year.
The collection of Household charge has only recently been feisted on the Local Authorities but the fallout of people not paying is now expected to be carried by them.
In addition,most Councils will have spent a lot of their money at this time of the year so their wriggle room for reduction of budgets is seriously compromised.

Actually, the figure is more like 50%+ than 25% - the 25% is the amount from the DoE "general purpose grant", but another 28% is made up of other central grants.

(http://per.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/Ireland_-_Towards_an_Integrated_Public_Service.pdf)

cordially,
Scofflaw

Sponge Bob

The cutbacks are in Galway COUNTY not in Galway CITY. The Council did their very best to share the pain right across the county but they made the mistake of not explaining the quid quo quos for payment, eg the first €100k to litter and the second €100k to old peoples day centres with the last €100k on public toilets... etc.

Consequently they seem to have no marginal leverage with which to improve collection stats.

Vizzy

Scofflaw wrote: »

Actually, the figure is more like 50%+ than 25% - the 25% is the amount from the DoE "general purpose grant", but another 28% is made up of other central grants.

(http://per.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/Ireland_-_Towards_an_Integrated_Public_Service.pdf)

cordially,
Scofflaw

Sorry,you are of course correct.
I didn't mean to mislead but the "portion" of the grant that the Household charge is supposed to replace acccounts for about 25%.

Spongebob is also correct i.e. the headline is for Galway county and not the city and never the twain shall meet(well not until they are merged anyway)

daenerysstormborn3

Fire services? Do people in Galway not receive an invoice from the Fire Service for call out charges as is procedure in other counties?

hmmm

No cutbacks in staffing or pay of course.

bgrizzley

lol, blackmail at its finest.

i dont see it on the list, but if they are reducing services i presume they will be reducing staff numbers as they are no longer required to provide those services.

km79

I got no letter yet to pay up

bbam

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

If you live in the coutryside or like me in a small village we see no services anyway.
We pay a private company to take away our rubbish, we are on a private water scheme which we fund ourselves and during the big freeze in 2010 the roads were never gritted around here.
Maybe for the citydwellers there will be a reduction in services but paying it would make no difference to us around here.

Fire services.
Litter
Library.
Road and verge maintenance.

I live in the country and would not like to see these services cut.
Not paying for services and then expecting someone to come out and rescue your family in the event of a fire is just hypocritical nonsense.

dvpower

bgrizzley wrote: »

lol, blackmail at its finest.

i dont see it on the list, but if they are reducing services i presume they will be reducing staff numbers as they are no longer required to provide those services.

Blackmail?
It was inevitable that non compliance would lead to further budget cuts; spending cuts is exactly what many of the anti HHC people have been calling for, so they should be happy with this outcome.

Geuze

km79 wrote: »

I got no letter yet to pay up

No letters were sent out to tell you to pay - there were notices in the papers and plenty of media coverage.

See here www.householdcharge.ie

dvpower

Geuze wrote: »

No letters were sent out to tell you to pay - there were notices in the papers and plenty of media coverage.

See here www.householdcharge.ie

The local authorities did send out letters over the last few weeks, but only to a small number of people.

Geuze

Ah, yes, you are referring to the first of three waves of reminder letters.

Yes, the first wave went to those already registered for the NPPR.

What I meant was that no letter was sent initially to ask you to pay.

Ghandee

dvpower wrote: »

Blackmail?
It was inevitable that non compliance would lead to further budget cuts; spending cuts is exactly what many of the anti HHC people have been calling for, so they should be happy with this outcome.

I for one am happy.
The govt are doing themselves no favours with this move.

Its blackmail at its best example.


Wonder did fidelmas .non payment of motor Tax add fuel to the fire in the Galway region?

bgrizzley

dvpower wrote: »

Blackmail?
It was inevitable that non compliance would lead to further budget cuts; spending cuts is exactly what many of the anti HHC people have been calling for, so they should be happy with this outcome.

i am happy. The people who paid can now see exactly the thanks they get for doing so.

what about my second point? should they cut staff numbers because they wont be providing the services?
that would save a nice few squids.

K-9

bgrizzley wrote: »

i am happy. The people who paid can now see exactly the thanks they get for doing so.

what about my second point? should they cut staff numbers because they wont be providing the services?
that would save a nice few squids.

Satff numbers have been cut in my Council before this charge. Cutting staff numbers would be a natural progression of funding cuts, the first area to be cut regardless of the charge.

dvpower

bgrizzley wrote: »

what about my second point? should they cut staff numbers because they wont be providing the services?
that would save a nice few squids.

If it was a permanent cut to funding then I'd expect to see staff cuts, but since cutting permanent staff is expensive and slow (and I think they're protected by the CPA), I'd say any staff cuts will tend to be of contract staff.

dvpower

Ghandee wrote: »

Wonder did fidelmas .non payment of motor Tax add fuel to the fire in the Galway region?

It takes a special kind of logic to tie the failure of a senator from Galway to pay her Motor Tax with a decision of a Local Authority to cut services.

robp

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

If you live in the coutryside or like me in a small village we see no services anyway.
We pay a private company to take away our rubbish, we are on a private water scheme which we fund ourselves and during the big freeze in 2010 the roads were never gritted around here.

I live in a city about the size of Belfast in Germany with far colder and longer winters. Despite its size only the major roads are salted yet the taxes are higher. No room for a sense of entitlement at the moment.

Ghandee

dvpower wrote: »

It takes a special kind of logic to tie the failure of a senator from Galway to pay her Motor Tax with a decision of a Local Authority to cut services.

Eh, my logic being....

The council blaming cuts that needed to be made due to a lack of funding available, they put it down due to a lack of people paying their taxes in the form of the HHC.

Then, in Galway.....

A GOVERNMENT senator gets a car taken of her for non payment of her car Tax.
Subsequently gets in a spot of bother for not having a valid ticket to ride the train she has been forced to use due too her car being confiscated. (I presume she hasn't been claiming her travel expenses so?)

Then we had the earlier cash in hand fiasco....


Tax evasion comes inn many forms DV, but when your salary comes straight from the Tax payer, its a little bit more than 'wrong'.

She should be turfed out of the fg party now, and her feet shouldn't touch the ground.

dvpower

Ghandee wrote: »

Tax evasion comes inn many forms DV, but when your salary comes straight from the Tax payer, its a little bit more than 'wrong'.

She should be turfed out of the fg party now, and her feet shouldn't touch the ground.

You've been posting on various threads here over the last year or so encouraging people to evade the HHC / Property Tax and now here you are calling for FHE to be sacked from FG for evading another tax.

Unbelivable, but just a little amusing.

Head The Wall

She is an awful fool though.

Ghandee

dvpower wrote: »

You've been posting on various threads here over the last year or so encouraging people to evade the HHC / Property Tax and now here you are calling for FHE to be sacked from FG for evading another tax.

Unbelivable, but just a little amusing.

No, what's amusing is the government (which I'm not a member of) begging us to pay the hhc and the upcoming property Tax, whilst their one of their own, evades a few taxes herself.

You have also been on various threads urging people 'not to be Tax evaders' defending all things FG, but when we see a clear cut case of Fg hypocrisy displayed here by one of their own senators 'evading tax' you've yet to condemn it.

Why do I think she should be sacked?

Explain to me why she should not.

Scofflaw

Enough about the Senator. She has her own thread, and that's quite enough space to waste on trivia.

moderately,
Scofflaw

tayto lover

Cavalry ?

[MOD]No, mod.[/MOD]

n97 mini

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

If you live in the coutryside or like me in a small village we see no services anyway.

Why do you live in the country, away from all these services?

RATM

hmmm wrote: »

No cutbacks in staffing or pay of course.

This. Heard the other day on here that three managers in Cork Council are on €140k and over per year. They get paid more than city council managers in the UK who are running districts with multples of population in them.

Not a word is mentioned about their extraordinary paypackets and at the same time they love to blame cutbacks on the public.

galway2007

km79 wrote: »

I got no letter yet to pay up

they might have cut back on stamps

galway2007

n97 mini wrote: »

Why do you live in the country, away from all these services?

we were forced out by a property bubble
I have no problem paying for service that i get but i am getting none from the state.
For the childrens park in my village we had to ask the GAA for some land and we hand to raise the funds for the eqiuipment ourselves
Had anybody in the city or the big towns to do this??????????

Head The Wall

No but there was usually a contribution demanded as a condition of planning. Near my home in Galway city this could be up to 10k while half a mile down the road because it was classed as county the contribution was around a tenth of the price.

So yes people in cities and Towns did play for playgrounds etc, whether they received them is another issue

I rented, I didn't realise people were forced to buy houses

Lumbo

RATM wrote: »

This. Heard the other day on here that three managers in Cork Council are on €140k and over per year. They get paid more than city council managers in the UK who are running districts with multples of population in them.

Not a word is mentioned about their extraordinary paypackets and at the same time they love to blame cutbacks on the public.

I think you may have heard wrong. The maximum of the Director of Services/Head of Function salary scale is €106,900 gross. The only person who gets paid more then them is the County Manager and there's only one of them.

Chips Lovell

galway2007 wrote: »

I have no problem paying for service that i get but i am getting none from the state.

Really? You benefit from no local authority services whatsoever?

galway2007

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

Really? You benefit from no local authority services whatsoever?

Name some and i will tell u if i have them
private water
private sewerage
No broadband
Headges not cut ( we both pay motor tax)
Road need resurface not done in years
No footpaths or lights

galway2007

Head The Wall wrote: »

No but there was usually a contribution demanded as a condition of planning. Near my home in Galway city this could be up to 10k while half a mile down the road because it was classed as county the contribution was around a tenth of the price.

So yes people in cities and Towns did play for playgrounds etc, whether they received them is another issue

I rented, I didn't realise people were forced to buy houses

So i paid them 6k development fee for services that we did not get
You got a play ground we got none, so had to fund it ourselves
Do u see?

Chips Lovell

You've never driven on a road that's been maintained by a local authority? Does your car not leave the driveway? Never used a public library? Wouldn't call the fire brigade if your house went on fire? Never used a public toilet? Or put litter in a public litter bin?

runawaybishop

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

You've never driven on a road that's been maintained by a local authority? Does your car not leave the driveway? Never used a public library? Wouldn't call the fire brigade if your house went on fire? Never used a public toilet? Or put litter in a public litter bin?

The level of service provided to rural users is far below that of urban dwellers.

mikom

runawaybishop wrote: »

The level of service provided to rural users is far below that of urban dwellers.

Not to mention being asked to pay for them twice.......... actually three times if you were to call out the fire service

n97 mini

galway2007 wrote: »

we were forced out by a property bubble

galway2007 wrote: »

So i paid them 6k development fee

The property bubble forced you to buy a site and build a one-off?

Chips Lovell

runawaybishop wrote: »

The level of service provided to rural users is far below that of urban dwellers.

I'm not sure what relevance that has to the post you quoted though?

dvpower

runawaybishop wrote: »

The level of service provided to rural users is far below that of urban dwellers.

The collective property tax paid by rural dwellers is going to be far below that of urban dwellers.

runawaybishop

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

I'm not sure what relevance that has to the post you quoted though?

The 100 euro charge is a flat charge. Without trying to make an all inclusive statement it could be said that rural people feel gypped by paying the same cash for less services, especially when they have to fork out for water schemes, septic tanks etc.

dvpower wrote: »

The collective property tax paid by rural dwellers is going to be far below that of urban dwellers.

Link? I hadn't heard that.

Chips Lovell

runawaybishop wrote: »

The 100 euro charge is a flat charge. Without trying to make an all inclusive statement it could be said that rural people feel gypped by paying the same cash for less services, especially when they have to fork out for water schemes, septic tanks etc.

But for years, rural local authorities have received a greater proportion of their funding from central government than urban ones. By your logic, urban people ought to feel gypped, since they've been subsidising rural people?

As of next year, it will be based on the value of your home, which on a like for like basis, would probably tilt things back in favour of rural dwellers.

dvpower

runawaybishop wrote: »

Link? I hadn't heard that.

No need for a link.

1. Its going to be valuation based (either site or property valuation); urban areas in Ireland have higher property valuations.

2. There are far more properties in urban than rural areas, so more revenue will be generated from urban areas.

Head The Wall

galway2007 wrote: »

So i paid them 6k development fee for services that we did not get
You got a play ground we got none, so had to fund it ourselves
Do u see?

If you paid 6k then could you clarify if that is within the city or county boundary?

djpbarry

pixiebean22 wrote: »

Fire services? Do people in Galway not receive an invoice from the Fire Service for call out charges as is procedure in other counties?

Do people in Galway really think that ~€100 covers the entire cost of a fire service call out?