Mayo County Council will pay out over €10 million in loan charges next year, the elected members of the council were told this week. Head of finance for the council, Peter Duggan, outlined the charges at Monday’s reconvened budget meeting of the council. He told the meeting: “This current budget has the provision of €10.5 million in loan charges, of those €4.3 million are recovered directly from third parties, the majority of them being Irish Water for the cost of providing the capital costs of the water sewerage services, and also there are recoupments direct from the Department of Environment, particularly in relation to our housing borrowings, they are recovered directly from the department.”
He added: “The remainder of around €6.3million we have to provide from our own resources and we have done in the budget. They have been estimated on the basis of no change in interest rates for the year ahead. Finance costs overall have increased, if you look at the 2014 budget compared to the 2015 budget, due to the additional borrowings of €2.4 million the members approved this time last year when adopting the budget for borrowings in relation to once off pay costs, effectively in relation to the local elections, a number of items were included in that.”
