County is in financial trouble
JULY 1980
Related Articles
COUNTY Kerry is in financial trouble, according to county councillors who have painted a gloomy picture of the time ahead. The main headache for the Council is the lack of Government aid in the form of hard cash.
"The situation is disastrous," claimed Fine Gael Deputy Michael Begley at Monday's Council meeting.
The position of the Council is so serious that a deputation visited the Minister of the Environment to look for more money to run the county.
And Mr Tom Collins, County Manager, has received no money to build new houses: a "very serious state of affairs."
At Monday's meeting Deputy Begley asked how many schemes in progress were going to be completed and the contractors paid. Was it not the position that the Council had proceeded with some major schemes with Government approval and now found themselves in the position that they had to pay contractors out of their own Council revenue, he asked.
"That's a very serious situation and I think we could dispense with the rest of the programme of the meeting in order to discuss the matter, particularly in regard to the Gneeveguilla sewerage scheme."
Cllr Dick Spring (Lab) asked if the stage had been reached where there would be no further development in the county in the current year.
The Manager said he explained to the Minister the affects of the ten per cent limitation on rates and their difficulty to meet costs which were over that figure, but which eroded the Council's finance. On housing alone he had stated there was a severe shortage of houses in Kerry, which would be entering 1981 in a very handicapped position, receiving no money whatever for the construction of new houses, while being able to complete approximately 224 houses in the current year. This obviously was a very serious state of affairs.
Mr Collins said that unless the Council received money for housing very urgently they would be in a very acute position.
Deputy Begley said that the Council went ahead with the three schemes he had named on the clear understanding that the money was to come from the Department and now that money wasn't coming.
