Budget 2012 was not good for jobs and neither is Monday’s decision by the Galway City Council against any decrease in the commercial rates according to the Galway Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber has described the decision not to decrease commercial rates - which was supported by 10 councillors, with five abstaining - as a “tax on initiative and on employment creation”.
According to the chamber, members of Galway Chamber and the wider rate-paying businesses in the city pay more than one third of the city budget in commercial rates.
In a statement the chamber said: “The burden of this tax falls on a relatively small number of rate-payers, including many small owner-managed family businesses, struggling to remain competitive in the face of economic difficulties and much bigger competitors as well as many young start-up businesses who have created jobs but are struggling to be profitable.”
As a result the chamber had urged councillors to reduce the commercial rates. While that has not come to pass, the chamber is still urging City Hall to look to at cost cutting within its own organisation, broadening its income stream base, and “generally behaving like business in the private sector at a time like this”.
The chamber is also calling on the Galway public to support its ‘Sp€nd Christmas in Galway’ campaign and “shop local, to make a concerted effort to protect jobs here and to support local businesses, the backbone of our local economy”.
