Tipperary council approves 5% hike in commercial rates as its largest ever budget is passed
An overwhelming majority of Tipperary County Council's elected members voted to approve the local authority's largest ever budget for next year worth more than €205.6m that includes a 5% rise in commercial rates levied to businesses.
The 2023 budget was passed by 33 votes to four at the end of a marathon meeting that lasted over 5 hours at the council's Clonmel civic offices yesterday (Friday).
Three Fine Gael councillors, Michael Murphy and John Fitzgerald from Clonmel and Mary Hanna Hourigan from Cappawhite, broke ranks to join with Clonmel Workers & Unemployment Action Group Cllr Pat English in voting against the budget.
Council management proposed a commercial rates hike of 7% in the draft budget arguing that it was necessary to enable the local authority to finance the matching funding it must put up to allow Rural Regeneration Development Fund and Urban Regeneration Development Fund projects to proceed for towns across the county that have secured millions of euro in government funding.
In the latest RRDF allocation announcement two weeks ago, regeneration scheme projects proposed for Carrick-on-Suir, Cahir and Roscrea secured €30.8m RRDF funding with the council now having to stump up close to €8m matching funding for them.
At the end of over four hours of debate on the draft budget the meeting adjourned briefly for the political party groups to consult and negotiate.
At the resumption of the meeting, Cllr Siobhán Ambrose of Fianna Fáil proposed that the budget be adopted with the amendment that the commercial rates hike be reduced from 7% to 5% and that the upper limit band for businesses to qualify for the Council's Early Payment Scheme that enables them to secure a discount on their bills be increased to €26,000.
The proposal was seconded by Cllr Marie Murphy on behalf of the Fine Gael party.
The Council's Head of Finance Liam McCarthy confirmed that the council would still be able to balance its budget if this rates reduction and change to the Early Payment Scheme was adopted.
Before the vote was taken, Clonmel FG Cllr Michael Murphy said it was with a “heavy heart” that he seconded Cllr English's proposal to reject the budget.
He said he couldn't support the 5% increase in commercial rates because while the Council's Early Payment Scheme offered good incentives to businesses to reduce their rates bills, many firms didn't have the cash flow to avail of it. They were carrying unsustainable levels of debt from the pandemic and were now in a cost of living crisis.
He pointed out that under a national review of rates, 30% or 2180 businesses in the county experienced an increase in their commercial rates levy and for some of them that increase was substantial. “For those reasons I can't support today's budget,” he said.
Sinn Féin's two councillors David Dunne and Tony Black, however, voted to approve the budget with Cllr Dunne pointing out it was the first time they were supporting the council's budget since their election.
Cllr Dunne, who is Cathaoirleach of Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District, explained that you couldn't welcome the funding that was after coming for the county, including his hometown, and not vote for this (rate) increase.
In his opening address to the Council's budget meeting, Council CEO Joe MacGrath pointed out that the Council's commercial rates ARV, which stands for Annual Rates on Valuation, has remained largely unchanged for over 10 years apart from the convergence of rates around the county following the merger of South and North Tipperary County Council.
He also pointed out that Tipperary had one of the lowest ARV's in the country and a rates reduction was applied to 64% of commercial properties in the county under the 2019 National Revaluation Programme.