The Mayo County Council is currently owed a large amount of money by central government that still has not been paid, it emerged this week. Fianna Fáil councillor Michael McNamara raised the issue this week, while head of finance for the council, Mr Peter Duggan, was giving his quarterly break down of the council’s finances. Cllr McNamara asked: “It was said that €9 million is owed to the council by the Government, has there been much progress made on recouping that.” Duggan told the meeting: “There has been very little movement with the Department, but discussions are ongoing between both sides.”
During his presentation, Duggan told the meeting that the council’s finances were currently online with what was budgeted for this year. The council has spent just over €60.5 million up to the end of June which was just over 45 per cent of budgeted expenditure for the year. On the income side of things the council took in just over €60.7 million so far, which was just over 46 per cent of budget income for the year. The commercial rates collection up to the end of June was at €7.3 million which was 56 per cent of the budgeted total for 2001 and six per cent higher than was collected at this time last year.
