I am reluctant to make grand promises about being able to create jobs in County Leitrim in the short term. Councillors do have a role in economic planning, but their statutory ability to steer the County Manager in a particular direction is often limited.

That said, the Council does have one specific power which has a direct impact on sustaining and creating local jobs: the power to set commercial rates.

As with every other County Council, Leitrim County Council will struggle to balance its books this year. Its funding from the Local Government Fund has been reduced and it is generating lower revenues from both commercial rates and motor taxation.

However, this does not prevent the Council from taking a pro-active approach to the issue of rates. By recouping expenses from other areas, the Council could introduce a rates holiday for new businesses, which would remove a significant burden from local entrepreneurs while they find their feet in these very difficult times.

For instance, if Councillors were willing to forego the Cathoirleach’s Allowance, which costs the Council several hundred thousand euro over the term of the Council, the money could easily be diverted to a rates holiday for new businesses.

All of this will come up for discussion when the Council meets towards the end of the year to frame its budget for 2010.

If we are to sustain jobs in County Leitrim, we need to start being creative with the powers we have. Some sacrifice on the part of Councillors, and a rates holiday for new businesses, would be a step in the right direction.

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Where's the builder?

Cllr. Gerry Reynolds (FG) seems to be getting himself in an awful twist about planning law.

In a statement issued to the papers a number of weeks back, Cllr. Reynolds claimed that Local Authorities are prevented by law from taking action on unfinished housing estates for 12 years after the developer has been granted planning permission.

I pointed out in a subsequent statement that this was nonsense. Section 34 of the Planning and Development Act, 2000 allows a Local Authority to require that an estate is finished with a certain time frame, provided that this time frame is at least 2 years from when works are commenced.

If this time frames elapses and the estate is not finished, the Local Authority can issue warning and enforcement notices to the developer, and ultimately use any security lodged by the developer to ensure the estate is finished.

Cllr. Reynolds then issued another statement saying that while this was factually correct, it did not make a difference, as this only related to ‘withering permissions and social and affordable housing’.

This is more nonsense.

A ‘ withering permission’ is a permission that is granted under a planning act that is still valid despite the planning act having been repealed to make way for a new act. Specific measures are normally included in new planning acts to deal with such permission, in order to prevent developers rushing through development before new regulations come into force. This was a particular issue in relation to Social and Affordable Housing, in that the rules on Social and Affordable Housing were significantly changed between the Planning and Development Act, 2000 and the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act, 2002.

What any of this has to do with unfinished housing estates, Cllr. Reynolds will have to explain.

Maybe he’ll provide an update on his website soon.

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I wrote a brief article for the website planningmatters.ie recently on the issue of Local Authorities and uncompleted housing estates.

You can access the article from this link.

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According to reports in today’s Leitrim Observer, all sitting Councillors and candidates in the Carrick on Shannon area have agreed not to use election posters in the forthcoming Local Elections.

Well, I’m a candidate in Carrick and Shannon and this is news to me.

2 weeks ago, I received a call from Cllr. Gerry Reynolds asking if I was interested in forming a consensus that no candidates would use posters.

I told Cllr. Reynolds that I had already ordered and paid for 30 posters, and that I did not agree with the initiative anyway, as it would unfairly advantage sitting Councillors, who have had 5 years, at the taxpayers expense, to promote their capabilities to the voters of County Leitrim.

This was the last I heard of the matter until I read the report in the Leitrim Observer. Clearly, the sitting Councillors are trying to pressurise new candidates like myself into submitting to their wishes. Personally, I find the idea of sitting Councillors deciding how other candidates should run their election campaigns to be a little undemocratic.

For what its worth, I will erect 30 election posters. These will be re-cyclable E-Board, not the highly polluting CorriBoard used by other parties. I will used bright green cable ties to erect these posters. All posters and ties will be removed by June 10th. I will not erect any poster on the main street of any town or village in the electoral area.

And all of my posters will feature a ‘Litter Costs Jobs’ message to promote awareness of tidy towns in the run up to the tourist season.

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The Green Party in Co. Leitrim has fired the first shot in its Local Election campaign by announcing that any Green candidates elected to Leitrim County Council will enter into a voluntary cap on expenses.

This cap will be set at €3,000 per annum, which in addition to a Councillors salary of €17,000, means that Green Party councillors will receive no more than €20,000 per annum from Leitrim County Council. The national average for Councillors is €33,347.

In addition, Green Party councillors will not undertake any foreign travel, and all expense claims made by Green Party councillors in Co. Leitrim will be published on the group’s website at the same time as they are made.

Annoucing the move, Green Party candidate in Manorhamilton, Gerry Farry, said:

“An investigation by the Irish Independent this year revealed some of ludicrous charges that Councillors across the country were making on the public purse. For instance, one Councillor charged the full cost of his Masters Degree to his Local Authority, while another charged for trips to places like Buenos Aires and Hong Kong”.

“At a time when the taxpayers funds are becoming ever more scarce, this is totally unacceptable.”

The party’s candidate in Dromahair, Johnny Gogan, said that if elected, Green Party candidates would use their expense allowance wisely.

“As chairman of Leitrim’s Mobile Cinema company until last year I was able to oversee an expansion and re-branding of the company’s services while the Council was cutting its grant to the facility by fifty per cent. We intend to be just as creative with Council resources when in office”

“It doesn’t make sense for every councillor to attend every event on every subject. We will evaluate the various seminars and conferences that come up, and if we feel that Leitrim has something to gain from our attendance, one of us we will go along.”

“We certainly don’t see any point in leaving the country to attend events. There is enough for Councillors to be doing at local level without having to be jetting around the globe.”

Carrick on Shannon candidate, Garreth McDaid, said that Councillors should set an example when it comes to the public purse.

“Extreme pressure will be put on the Local Government Fund over the coming years, and we want Councillors to do their part to ensure that services are protected to the greatest extent possible.”

“The Council’s budget should be used to maintain roads, provide recreation facilities for young people and protect our environment; it should not be used to pay Councillors to attend conferences at luxury hotels.”

ENDS

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The Sligo Leitrim Roscommon Green Party will meet at the Glens
Centre in Manorhamilton on Thursday May 29th at 7pm.

A Table Quiz to raise money for the group has also been organised for Gurns Milestone Lounge in Manorhamilton on Friday June 6th. A good turn out at this would go a long way to providing the group with the necessary funding to run a solid Local Election campaign.

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