€60,000 is only a drop in the ocean for drainage - Gurn

Some councillors were less than impressed with an increase in the river drainage allocation at this year's budget. 

Head of Finance, Vincent Dwyer informed members at the meeting that was held this week that the river drainage allocation increased to €60,000 from €20,000 two years ago.

Cllr Sean McGowan said the additional funding for drainage was "not near enough but a step in the right direction; we could do with probably tripling it."

Cllr Des Guckian said the allocation of €60,000 is "absolutely pathetic" and said it should be in the region of €1m to "deal with all of the rivers" and "if that back-up on various rivers continues, we'll be living in a swamp."

Cllr Felim Gurn said that "if we do have serious flooding issues, €60,000 is only a drop in the ocean to have it sorted out. Also, if they are flooded, you'll never get insurance again and we have built a lot of houses in flood zones."

Cllr Brendan Barry welcomed the increase stating that "it is for maintenance; you have to be continuously cleaning and keeping them in good shape and hopefully going forward it will be that amount every year."

CEO Joseph Gilhooly said he was aware that councillors would like to see more funding for river drainage. "Within the sources we have, we try to address as far as possible the issues we know the county has and the members articulate clearly here month after month."

Cllr Guckian said that he wanted to go on record as "opposing the budget" and said there were "certain areas we should be demanding twice the allocation from government, e.g roads, to bring all road surfaces up to standard and lessen accidents."

He said with regards housing, "we need twice the government's spending to cater for council housing for our own citizens". 

He said that local property tax is "grossly unfair" for "rural dwellers as no service is provided in return" and said that the tax along with "other taxes, charges and levies were introduced to "make us pay for the sins of the bankers in 2008 that destroyed this country". 

He said the budget "avoids the reality of Leitrim and fails to support farming and ignores the massive attempts to cover most of Leitrim in blanketed forestation."
Under Miscellaneous Service, Mr Dwyer said an additional allocation has also been provided for the local elections next year (€130,000).