Independent councillor Daniel Callanan is calling on the city manager not to target the usual suspects; the eldery, the vulnerable, and the hard working; when framing the Galway City Council’s budget for 2009.
Speaking in relation to the government cuts against the elderly and the vulnerable, Cllr Callanan voiced his hope that the city manager would “live up to his pledge to protect the vulnerable” and that he would not try to interfere with the waiver system for bin collection, which has been protected for the last number of years by the City Council.
Cllr Callanan also said that, given the severe economic downturn, he hoped the city manager would not take the “other easy option” by raising the taxes of the hard working ratepayers.
“In the last four years alone, local council expenditure in running the city has increased by over €20 million from €70 million to €90 million. This level of increase is unsustainable. Given the total failure of this Government to properly fund the local councils, as evidenced by this year’s cuts, and its failure to properly fund other projects such as Mutton Island, the local ratepayer cannot continually be expected to fund this increased expenditure,” explained Cllr Callanan, who said the only option facing councillors was to freeze expenditure at last year’s levels. “To achieve this will require across the board cuts in expenditure, however given the very large increases in recent years, I believe there is a huge amount of wasteful expenditure.”
“Not only do I support the call for senior management to lead by example and take wage cuts, or at least to forego their bonuses, the local councillors must also lead by example in cutting back. There is absolutely no excuse for an allocation of €100,000 for councillors attending conferences and I therefore hope my colleagues will support my proposal that this heading is eliminated entirely in the upcoming budget. The local council, like everybody else in society, is going to have to start living within their means and much leaner means at that.”
Cllr Callanan said that his two primary goals for the upcoming budget negotiations will be to protect the waiver system for those in a less economically stable position, and to protect jobs by limiting rises in rates to the bare minimum in an effort to protect small businesses.
