The elected members of Ballina Municipal District have been told that the council will only be committing 50 per cent of the previously budgeted for General Municipal Allocations, up to the end of July this year, owing to the current financial situation the council finds itself in due to a drop in income due to Covid-19.
The news was broken to the councillors at the May monthly meeting held last Friday in the Ballina Arts Centre, by the local authority's new head of finance, Tom Gilligan, who told the members that the council faced losing up to €1 million in car parking charges this year. He said there was a commitment for 50 per cent of the GMA to be paid out between now and the end of July, saying: "We have to be mindful of the impact of Covid-19 on our finances" and "It is dependent on finances how much of the GMA we will be able to pay out. No doubt about it, we will have to cut our cloth to suit our measure.”
