While the State endured Brian Lenihan’s savage Budget yesterday, Galway will have to wait until tomorrow before the Galway City Council decides on its own budget for 2010.
The council’s Statutory Annual Budget Meeting takes place tomorrow in City Hall, College Road, at 3pm. At the meeting, councillors will be asked to consider the Draft Annual Budget 2010 before voting on it. They will also be asked to vote on whether or not to increase the rates for the coming year.
The council has a deficit of €1.9 million and there were fears expressed in recent weeks that this would result in the waiver system for waste collection being abolished and rates increased. However a compromise has been reached that will see a toning down on some of the harsher measures that were proposed.
It is understood that city manager Joe MacGrath wanted the waiver to apply on the standing charge of €159, with all householders paying their ‘by weight’ bin charges in full. Following discussions with the pact councillors - Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Independent former PDs - the charges will only come into effect for waiver customers when they exceed a certain weight for their bins.
City Hall also wanted to increase the charge for commercial water from €1.60 to €1.90 per cubic metre, on the basis that it was no longer “feasible for Galway City Council to provide this level of subsidy and the charge must now be applied at the economic cost”.
However, councillors have succeeded in getting the increased charge to be introduced on a phased basis over the next two to three years.
