Government playing hide and seek with Dublin city council, Ahead of the Dublin City Council budget meeting on Monday night, Dublin City Councillor and member of the Finance SPC Noeleen Reilly is calling on the government to engage with Dublin city council on the many outstanding substantive budget items. She said ‘The upcoming Dublin City Council budget leaves a lot of unanswered questions from the government. They came out last month in the full glare of the media spot light and announced a 2.2 billion package for housing yet we are facing a budget on Monday night where the government has still not confirmed to us what portion Dublin city council will be receiving and when this will be received. We are also still in the dark over what funding the department of environment will provide for homelessness. He has committed previously to providing an additional €4m due to the increased cost to the city yet again we have no confirmation on this. Minister Kelly needs to confirm this as a matter of urgency. He also needs to face up to the fact that his department are now only providing 70% of the cost of homeless services whereas in the past their allocation was approximately 90%. This is putting huge additional stress on the finances of Dublin city council and he needs to address this to ensure there are no further cuts to other services in the future.’ She further added ‘Sinn Féin led the council’s decision to reduce the property tax by 15% back in September despite opposition from some within the government parties. We wanted to put something back in the pockets of ordinary Dubliners after they had suffered years of Austerity. The government have shown us that this was the correct decision as they have now reduced the Roads block grant and the general purpose grant to reflect the surplus left over from the property tax. It would seem they are determined that the citizens of Dublin City will in no way benefit from extra services that the property should have provided. We are calling on the government to allow us to pass this budget on Monday night and provide us with the full funding figures from his department so we can make an informed decision. ‘End
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 11:32:41 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015