Cutbacks are coming for Kerry
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Wednesday March 10 2010
KERRY is faced with a drastic cutback in its maintenance service this year, and it now looks as if new services will not be introduced by the County Council. When the Council meets in Tralee on Monday to consider the rates estimate for the year the councillors will be told the bad news, including a warning of coming redundancies among council workers.
Mr. Tom Collins, County Manager, spells it out in his report: " The level of services will be severely curtailed and a substantial reduction in employment seems inevitable, unless there is a substantial increase in the amount of State grants." He added: "While every effort will be made to maintain the employment of the regular workforce, it seems at this stage it will be impossible to do so. There is a very real prospect of employees being made redundent during the year.
"The full situation will not become known until such time as notification is received from the Department of the Enviroment of the level of grants for 1980, but unless there is a substantial increase in all grants, and especially in the bloc grant, it will be impossible to maintain the present level of employment."
But that's not the end of the bad news. For the public possibly the major cut back to be felt will be the that of roads maintenance.
"While every effort will be made to carry out the most urgent maintenance it is inevitable that the main and county roads will deteriorate during 1980 and that it will not be possible to carry out desirable maintenance works and even works which are considered necessary will have to be postponed." says the County Manager.
While there is a ten per cent limitation on the rates increase imposed by the Government, inflation is rising to a conservative 20 per cent so producing the complete cutback on maintenacne.
