Sligo County Council facing cuts to library services as it prepares to meet Minister

Sligo County Council is facing cuts to its library services, the shutdown of its motor tax offices and further redundancies as it prepares for a meeting with Environment Minister Alan Kelly on Tuesday.

A council deputation is facing an uphill battle to convince the Minister to sanction an injection of central government funding to help resolve its ongoing financial difficulties. The Department of the Environment has already signalled its unhappiness with a recently submitted 10 year financial plan from the local authority, describing it as a “useful starting point” but one which failed to address the key issues. In a letter to the council dated January 22nd the department requested a revised plan saying the “gulf” between income and expenditure could not continue.

Cheif execurtive Ciarán Hayes insisted yesterday the council had “turned the corner” in 2014, achieving “phenomenal” success in correcting its finances. But Mr Hayes confirmed to councillors that the department was now threatening to withhold €750,000 out of an anticipated once off allocation of €1m, because of its dissatisfaction with the council’s financial plan.

The council is facing demands for more job cuts and the closure of one of its three libraries, a proposal which has met with furious opposition locally. Local Fine Gael TD John Perry said the chief executive was "out of order" to even consider closing a library given that they are not funded by the Department of Environment. Local Fianna Fail senator Marc MacSharry said central government was hanging Sligo out to dry. Prescribing library closures, tax office closures and more redundancies was fundamentally wrong and doing to Sligo people "what Brussels and Frankfurt did to Ireland", he added.

The CEO told councillors the department was insisting that its financial plan would not be considered sustainable without the closure of the motor tax service . Sinn Fein’s Sean MacManus questioned the impact on “Johnny up on the side of the mountain with no access to computers to pay his tax online”. Pointing out that seven businesses in Sligo had closed since the beginning of January he accused the department of taking a “short sighted view”.

The CEO said he had invited civil servants to visit Sligo and would “walk the town with them and show them the situation on the ground and the number of vacant properties”.

Councillors were told that for the first time in years a surplus had been pencilled in for 2014, but without the expected €750,000 from the department they were now facing a deficit of €575,000 for last year.

In a letter to the council dated January 22nd, the department said the budgetary approach taken by the council from 2008 to 2013 had led to an accumulated deficit of €21.7m. And it pointed out that during that period the local government auditor had warned each year that the council needed to prepare “realistic and achievable budgets”.

The Department also described the Council’s proposal to stop financing the coroner’ office as “unacceptable” saying it had a statutory duty to do so.

In his most recent report for 2013 local government auditor Raymond Lavin described the cumulative deficit as “a very serious matter”.

He also criticised the collection yields for rates, rent and housing loans which had decreased every year for the last six . The rates collection yield in 2013 was 59 per cent , down from 90 pc in 2008 , he pointed out.

In his response the CEO said “door to door collections” were now being done where necessary.