Chambers seeks rates cap in light of pay deal

Rises in local authority rates for businesses should be capped at the rate of inflation because the Government is being "irresponsible" over benchmarking, the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland (CCI) said today.

Speaking in Dublin this morning, chief executive of the CCI Mr John Dunne said the Government's national accounts are misleading because the cost of funding benchmarking pay awards to local authorities is not coming from Exchequer.

Local authorities and health boards are facing the addition of €220 million to their wage bill as 50,000 public-service craft workers are due a 17 per cent award under benchmarking.

According to Mr Dunne "the Government is being either incompetent or dishonest in its approach to local authority financing.

"It has created a massive additional cost of €220 million for local authorities through benchmarking and has decided that while it will fund benchmarking across all other public sectors, local authorities have to go it alone.

"It is effectively dumping the local authorities and saying they are not its responsibility in order to make the coffers look more healthy."

This problem was being compounded by the refusal by the Government to allow local authorities to cut staff to remain within budget.

"Instead, [the Government] has created the obligation to pay and has given local authorities no alternative but to find the money through a combination of cutting services and hiking up charges to business and domestic users."

He said business has reached the "absolute end of its tether in terms of local authority charges".