Waterford council ‘adrift’ €2.7 million for 2027
Dungarvan-Lismore councillors were told at the annual district budget meeting this week. Stock Image.
Waterford City and County Council are “adrift” €2.7 million.
That is according to the council’s Head of Finance, Bernard Pollard, at the annual Dungarvan Lismore district budget meeting held on Monday.
Mr Pollard said the council really are down a lot of money.
“This is my eighth year doing a budget and this is the most difficult I’ve had,” said Mr Pollard.
The shortfall seems to come from an issue related to the transfer of water services to Uisce Éireann, formally Irish Water.
In 2023 it was announced that water workers from the council would, on a phased basis move to Irish Water, should they wish to.
Mr Pollard explained to councillors that most staff moved while others didn’t.
Some were due to retire and did so, but the council was left with some staff, they needed to assign positions.
Initially, Uisce Éireann and later the central government paid for those staff, but next year they won’t, leaving a €1.2 million shortfall.
In addition to that, the council have acquired a mobile library, which is an added cost to operations.
“So, there are a lot of pressures on us,” said Mr Pollard.
The annual budget meeting is an opportunity for councillors to review the district allocations ahead of the plenary meeting which takes place on Thursday.
However, councillors do not have much say in the budget aside from parking charges which is a reserved function, and General Municipal Allocations, more commonly known as GMA.
GMA is discretionary funding which can be allocated to groups by the district council.
Cllr Damien Geoghegan called the meeting a “charade” because the district council doesn’t approve a budget, that happens at plenary level.
But he did say that GMA funding is important because it’s a way for councillors to allocate funding in their own areas.
Cllr Donnchadh Mulcahy said he felt GMA should go back to general council funding and suggested that the practice was a way of “buying an election by giving money to different organisations”.
But he also said he would distribute the funding available to him.
That said, the district budget did have to be formally approved by councillors.
The budget was proposed by Cllr Damien Geoghegan and seconded by Cllr Niamh O’Donovan.
