What if your Local Property Tax was to go up?

“Well boi”, it’s that time of year once again!

Behind the closed, locked doors of City Hall and Dungarvan Civic Offices, our 32 Councillors will be, should be, fiddling with their calculators. (This is not a euphemism!) They’re deciding the Waterford City and County budget for 2018. But just what might this mean for you, the reader?

The actual process of passing and approving a “Balanced budget” is rather strange. As there is so much of the Executives’ budget that is quite literally “Untouchable”. In fact our Councillors can only change, alter or influence a rather small percentage of a much larger circa €130,000,000 budget. With the Lansdowne-Haddington-kick-the-can-down-the-Road agreements coming on stream, we could see pressure being heaped on our Council to contribute more to budgetary areas. Expected pay and pension increases that may not actually be covered by additional, supplementary central exchequer grants/funds. This of course means you and I have to pay for this.

You might recall, that our local news and media, covered many column inches, giving lots of radio snippets, about just how there could be absolutely NO Local Property Tax (LPT) or Commercial Rates increases for 2017. The Councillors agreed that the timing was NOT right!

What has changed in our economic outlook that makes increase charges to LPT and Commercial Rates, a very realistic possibility for 2018?

Look at highly regarded reports, such as the WIT “South East Economic Monitor” and more recently the Council’s very own, Indecon “Economic Cost Benefit Appraisal of the Waterford City Urban Renewal Scheme”. The Indecon document is the actual report, commissioned by the Council, submitted to Government for circa €61,000,000 of exchequer funding. Income that would make possible the alteration to infrastructural groundwork. Which in turn, would allow Saudi Arabia’s Fawaz Alhokair Group, to build on our Strategic Development Zone, on the North Quays.

Both of these reports detail and outline, in no uncertain terms, Waterford City/County and the wider South East region have some way to go, to catch up on the rest of the country’s “Green shoots of recovery”. In fact the gulf, excuse the pun, between some of the economic indicators is, in truth, quite jaw dropping. Disposable income, percentage of the population at risk of poverty, labour force participation rates, unemployment rates, third level attainment....and more besides, make for some incredibly grim reading.

But then we all know that the South East has been neglected by successive Governments for year, after year, after year.

The statistics produced, make an exceptionally compelling and concrete case for Government support for the Alhokair Group’s plans for the North Quays. I do hope that this money is forthcoming from this current Government. Kick starting a REAL recovery in Waterford and the wider South East region. One would also hope that any infrastructural funding would find its way to Waterford. Much, much faster than our rented, National Health Service mobile catheterisation laboratory did! (It has arrived! But then again you would know this, due to the “Trumpeting”, by a few on social media).

Oh and we must remember that with a local council election scheduled for 2019, next year is realistically, the only opportunity that our 32 brave men and women have, to impose punitive increases. Increases on both our LPT and that other easily reached cash cow, Commercial Rates. After all who would want to be imposing unpopular increases, when disproportionate door knocking is already pencilled into the diary?

Any increase, no matter how small, will affect our particularly local economy. Businesses and households are already extraordinarily tight for money, facing continued huge increases in car insurance, rising back to school costs, a spiralling cost of living, fuel expenses for both car and home inflating. Business overheads are also rising disproportionately, thus not reflecting where Waterford’s economy presently sits. The previously mentioned reports, back up just how tight we ALL are for money and disposable income is as rare as hen’s teeth.

What are we to do if increases are imposed by our elected 32 for 2018? Simply ask them directly;

“Why should I be paying more?” Above all, it’s imperative you take an interest in what your Councillors are doing for you and Waterford.

LE Aoife a sad loss for Waterford City.

It was with great shock that I read last week that the Government had decided to “gift” the LE Aoife to the Maltese Government to help with the humanitarian crisis currently faced by this small island nation strategically situated in the Mediterranean, and an ideal target destination for those having to flee North Africa.

Whilst I applaud the Government’s rapid response to the crisis currently affecting many Mediterranean countries, surely there should be a coordinated Pan-European response to the problem and it cannot be the sole responsibility of Ireland to come up with an individual solution. There are many, many asset rich Mediterranean and European countries that are far better placed than Ireland is to offer relatively modern patrol vessels suitable for the Maltese Armed Forces exacting needs.

The fact that it now appears the Maltese Government and the Maltese Armed Forces deem the LE Aoife “unsuitable for the role” begs the question why was the LE Aoife offered in the first place? Was there sufficient pre-offer discussions? Or was the Minister genuinely offering help in response to the crisis? I believe the Minister indisputably wanted to help and in his eagerness to do just that offered the LE Aoife without completing a suitability study. 

What is absolutely sure is that the decommissioned LE Aoife is 100% suitable for a proposed plan to bring her to Waterford City to play a central role in a proposed nautical museum piece and would also play an essential role in a South East, 170 kilometres, Maritime Trail around some key South East’s maritime destinations.

This plan was put together by me, James Doherty and Eddie Mulligan (now Cllr Eddie Mulligan) who due to his career association with the Irish Navy took the lead role in the project.

The Maritime Trail project, with the LE Aoife at its very heart, was launched in July 2013 to the then Mayor of Waterford City and the Minister of State at the Departments of An Taoiseach and Defence. Additional presentations were made later that year and a full final business plan was due to be presented to Waterford Council this week. The business plan to bring the LE Aoife to Waterford City had been researched and benchmarked against similar projects in Ireland and in the UK such as the Dunbrody (New Ross) and Jeanie Johnston (Dublin), The Mary Rose (Portsmouth), The Discovery and Unicorn Frigate (Dundee) and HMS Belfast and Cutty Sark (London). The project would have been supported by volunteers and the manufacturing and engineering firms of Waterford City.

There can be no doubt that the LE Aoife would have been a significant tourism draw to Waterford City and would have tied in with the Viking Longboat and possibly a restoration project for the Portlairge dredger.

Three iconic ships on display, on The Quay, in Waterford City – now that would be a mouth watering prospect.

We still hold out hope that the decision can be reversed and the LE Aoife can now be “gifted” to Waterford City for the maritime project. If she does have to sail away to Malta then we wish her Godspeed.

Should we see the LE Aoife sail off into the sunset we have to be very cognisant that this is yet another potential project that Waterford City has once again missed out on. A project that would have had a significant social and community contribution, as well as generating much needed local income.

We have seen recently a repeated story of projects leeching out of Waterford City all too often, I am afraid.

Only last week we read a statement in the local media that a Dublin based architect had “won” the rights to the design for the Michael Street shopping centre development. Apparently, this company had been engaged for some time and possibly as far back as 2013. I understand that the original design and planning work for this development was done by a Waterford City based architect.

Do we not have to ask the question why was the Waterford based company not engaged to finish a project they had been involved in for so many years?

I also learned last week that the new fire station design work had also been “won” by a Dublin based company and low and behold one of the suppliers for internal furniture comes from Northern Ireland – now where is the sense in that!

You have to applaud the Office of Government Procurement for working towards getting best value for money for tendered projects and therefore our taxes. However, there must surely at the very least be a social aspect to accepting tender bids that must take into account local businesses and the simple fact that a local business will put money back into the local economy.

Rest assured the Dublin based companies are taking money OUT of Waterford’s economy and is there ANY contribution coming into our local economy from the appointment of a company from Northern Ireland?

One of the biggest Government contracts has been “won” by a company from the USA and they are working from a European base in the UK. So just how is this company contributing to the Irish economy? Is there any money coming back in terms of vat, taxes and other contributions?

When tender projects are conceived surely there has to be an acknowledgement to local companies to allow them to tender and then take into account the fact these local companies employ local people, who spend locally, pay local commercial rates and other forms of local taxes.

We must ask ourselves are we happy to let more and more contracts go outside of Waterford?

Someone must take a lead role in ensuring that Waterford companies can at the very least compete with other larger organisation for Government contracts. There has to be a built-in social aspect to any tender and we do need our leaders to stand up and fight for Waterford businesses.

I am constantly reminded that if your company is the wrong side of the Jack Lynch Tunnel you will not secure business in Cork. If you are outside of the M50 you will not secure business in Dublin.

Can we not write local government tender contracts that require a business to be “on site” within 30 or 40 minutes? This would at the very least ensure a local company can compete for a contract.

What we do need are people who want local companies to compete for local projects and we need them to put their hand up and proactively ask local companies to step up to the mark.

As Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is success.” Maybe this is where we should start? 

ENDS