It is Budget time once again!

The 2015/2016 national budget is now behind us and we are just awaiting some last minute discussions in the Dáil, some machinations in the Seanad, and then the final approval of the Finance Bill, traditionally, sometime in February and then it will be all over for another year and it could well be the last budget delivered by the FG/Labour coalition as we move inextricably towards the promised “E-A-R-L-Y” spring election. Before we know it, it will be 2016 and we will all have forgotten about Mr Noonan’s last budget.

However, for us in Waterford, there is another budget looming on the horizon – the Waterford City and County Council budget.

As the Council begin to mull over their financial figures and projections for 2016, we are once again nearer the time for our Council Executive and our Council Representatives to vote on the 2016 budget, which will be somewhere around the €132,000,000 mark! It is a time for us to see how our representatives perform in what is seen by many as their most fundamental task.

Will the proposed budget be passed? Will we see pact voting? Will we see strategic voting? Will we see a genuine forensics analysis of the budget figures?

This is the time of year when our public representatives earn their corn and it really is a time of year when we hope that they will look at the bigger picture, rather than a parochial view of their own wards, and make the right decisions that will drive economic investment back into the City Centre and further afield across the whole County. Failure to understand the economics of making sound budgetary decisions will have a profound effect on how we perform as a City and County in 2016.

This budget sets out the Council’s spending plans for 2016 and also sets income targets on big ticket items such as the Commercial Rates collection which in the last budget was circa €32,000,000, it sets the household charges, car parking charges and all the other associated cost centres that will allow the Council to operate for the next 12 months. We will also see spending plans outlined and discussed such as the delivery of the Waterford City Centre Urban Renewal Plans, festival spending budgets, roads maintenance plans, housing spending and much, much more besides.

The headline figures for businesses will, of course, be the Commercial Rates collection amounts and whether or not these will remain the same, increase or ideally, for businesses to invest, these should be reduced by up to 20%. A rates reduction will encourage investment, will increase employment and will make for a better City Centre.

Alas, I feel that these will remain the same as the last two years and yet the brave decision has to be the introduction of a significant reduction to help struggling City Centre businesses. Any offset in the reduction of rates will be collected with new businesses starting up and a significant rates reduction will go some way to encouraging the retail brands the City is currently missing to invest in Waterford. In addition a better retail mix will drive increased footfall and this in turn will also encourage more business start-ups and these new businesses will pay their share in commercial rates. Win Win!

Another brave decision would be the reduction in car parking charges and, if the Council take the lead in this process, then the private owners have to follow suits. This is still the elephant in the room and until we tackle this issue we will find it increasingly difficult to encourage the people on the “Dunmore Road” into the City Centre never mind further afield.

I still wonder if, due to their free car parking passes, our representatives see the car parking as an issue or perhaps they drive around wearing rose tinted glasses.

After all, if it costs you nothing, zero, nada, nil to park your car in Waterford City and County why would there be a problem?