Concrete tax will hit Laois County Council's work warns Fianna Fáil councillor

Rising costs will hit spending on roads and other work by Laois County County Council with a senior Fianna Fáil councillor pinpointing the new levy on concrete as one of the factors that will limit delivery.

The issue of rising costs faced by Laois County Council was raised at a Borris-in-Ossory Mountmellick Municipal District meeting which was chaired by experienced Fianna Fáil representative Cllr Paddy Bracken.

He was among the public representatives from all sides who fear for some projects being delivered out of the overall council budget and the so-called discretionary spend of €21,000 allocated to each councillor in Laois.

Cllr Bracken was worried about the impact of the new levy introduced by his party, Fine Gael and the Greens in Budget 2023 to help compensate householders hit by mica damage.

"Costs have increased. The amount of work we get done is diminishing every month...then you have the 10% that's gone onto concrete products in the Budget," he said.

He was speaking on a motion tabled by Cllr James Kelly, Independent, who called  on the Council to provide for a 30% increase allocation in Laois County Council 2023 Councillors Discretionary Fund due to rising costs of materials and labour for community projects, roadworks, lighting, traffic calming measures.

Cllr Kelly said the discretionary fund goes to street lights, traffic calming, road repairs and similar work. He listed some of the price rises in getting work done which means the discretionary money won't stretch as far as previously.

He listed one such cost outlined to him by the council's road's Department that would see the cost of street light rising from €3,500 to €4,300.

"We are going to get less work done for the €21,000 we get," he said.

He expected other projects already agreed for the west and south of Laois to be hit. He instanced the three year roads programme which would see €2.5 million spent each year.

"When you look at the roads programme there are going to be casualties if the costs continue to go up," he said.

Cllr John King, Fine Gael, was also concerned that work won't be done.

"We'll have to go back and tell people that due to the shortage of funding we'll only be able to repair parts of roads," he said.

He called for a meeting with the Council's Director of finance to seek more money.

Cllr Ollie Clooney, Independent, agreed and believed money on projects nominated by public representatives is not wasted.

"Councillors spend their money wisely on paths, lights, bad roads or whatever. Money is badly needed and it is the local councillors that know where the black spots are," he said.

He said councillors live in the real world but extra money is needed for councillor nominated projects.

Cllr Conor Bergin, Fine Gael, believed money could be found. He said the six councillors share out some €120,000 annually while the council has an €80 million budget. He hoped that an extra sum of €75,000 allocated to each district would be retained in 2023.

Bus shelters go back to the drawing board in Laois

Despite their appeals, there wasn't good news for the public representatives form Gerry Murphy, Head of Finance. He replied in writing at the meeting where he also indicated that councillors could have raised funds.

"You will be aware from last Monday’s Monthly meeting (September 26) of the Council that there are considerable cost increases across very many aspects of Council expenditure, including the public sector pay agreement, energy, materials, etc.  There are very few areas that this Council can increase income to meet new demands in respect of expenditure.  One such area was the Local Property Tax.  This was set at the same level as 2022.

"The aim of our 2023 budget will be to protect the many services provided by this Council.  I regret to advise that the Discretionary Funding cannot be increased in 2023 but will be reviewed again for 2024," he said.

Sod turned on 14 new homes for Laois

Director of Services, Donal Brennan, added to this at the meeting. He agreed that councillors spend money wisely and said the points made would be conveyed to Mr Murphy.