Row of words as Mid Ulster rate increase 'dissenters' are challenged

Councillor Cathal Mallaghan (Sinn Féin, Cookstown DEA) elicited strong reactions when he asked ‘dissenting councillors’ to explain themselves.

He stated at the meeting: “I welcome tonight’s decision [to set the rate increase at 5.9%].

“As we know, from having been through this process for a number of years, whenever people pay their rates the council receive somewhere in the region of 42 to 44% of that entire pot of money, and that’s really important in terms of delivering our essential services, our capital projects, but also in terms of delivering for the health service and for our roads, and all the other aspects that this money goes towards funding.

“We came through a very difficult period this year, with workers having to go on strike because they were demanding fair pay for a hard day’s work, and I was very glad that myself and my party were able to stand with them on their picket lines.

“But the fact that you have to pay people more money means that it’s going to cost more to run your services.

“This council is relatively in good financial shape, and that’s because of the difficult decisions made by my party over the last eight years, ensuring that we do have the resources in order to run the organisation and to fund a very good capital budget in terms of what we want to see, what all 40 [Mid Ulster] councillors demand and speak about on a regular basis.

“We regularly hear about extra demands, but whenever it comes to the resourcing of those demands, those hard decisions are left for others.

“I hope over the next 12 months, with inflation coming down, and hopefully with increased rates intake across Mid Ulster, that this won’t be just as painful as it might be. 60p to 61p per week for the average ratepayer, that’s the increase that’ll be on their rates after this decision tonight. As one of the best councils of the 11 in terms of what we deliver and what we do for our people, I really do feel it’s good value for money.

“We had a number of members here tonight who didn’t vote with the 5.9% increase on the rate, and I think it’s only fair that the public hear from the parties or the Independents, to find out where they’re at and what was the figure that was acceptable [to them].

“And if it’s a lower figure than 5.9%, where do they want that money to come from?”

As one of the elected representatives who had voted against a 5.9% increase, Councillor Barry Monteith (Independent, Dungannon DEA) defended his position very strongly: “There’s ample money within our budget. We keep talking about projects and projects and projects. People on the ground aren’t seeing these projects.

“People on the ground aren’t seeing promises that have been made, and we can’t expect people to keep paying more money for services that are staying the same and not improving.

“We’ve been preached at for the last week by the bigger parties telling everybody that nobody should be paying more for the services they’re getting. So I’ll not be lectured in here by the same parties for rejecting an increased burden, not just on on ratepayers but on many of our small businesses in our town centres.

“The bottom line on this is, retail is overburdened and paying a disproportionate amount on the rates burden. It cannot continue and it will force businesses to close.

“So we can talk all we want, but money has to come from somewhere. It comes out of people’s pockets at the end of the day.

“Every council in here I’m sure gets lobbied on a continual basis about our town centres closing, about people not able to make a living in in the shops, and now we see the British Government’s going to make it even easier to turn retail units into housing.

“I’ll not be lectured [on my] vote against increases when the same parties have been all over the broadcast media there, telling the public that they shouldn’t pay more for the same services.”

Fellow independent councillor, Dan Kerr (Torrent DEA) was equally unapologetic about his decision to vote against a 5.9% rate increase: “I voted against the rate [increase] because I believe that people are experiencing financial hardship.

“[I am speaking] as somebody who’s from a working-class background, and as somebody who has seen poverty [growing] over this last number of years, by being involved in different organisations, including the local foodbank, so that’s my rationale.

“I find it ironic that there’s people giving lectures whenever last year they were happy enough to increase the rates, but close down council-owned properties like the Coalisland recycling centre.

“Same as Barry, I won’t be taking any lectures from these people full of grandstanding.”

Councillor Malachy Quinn (SDLP, Torrent DEA) claimed that he had not been given an opportunity to table an alternative recommendation for a 4.5% rate increase – a contention strongly denied by Council Chairman, councillor Dominic Molloy.

Councillor Quinn stated: “Once again we find ourselves in a position of having to raise our rate, not because we’re introducing new services for our ratepayers, but because our funding is being cut across the board by other means.”

The SDLP representative went on to mention the plight of some residents who had seen their rates bill increase from £1,000 to £1,200 year on year.

He continued: “That was a big amount of money for any household to take on. We are in a cost-of-living crisis, people are not seeing an increase in wages but they are seeing an increase in costs.

“This council has seen our share of the Rates Support Grant halved over recent years, perhaps even more. We also may see a big increase coming in our regional rate. We have seen the annual welfare budget taken away, a cost that we now have to cover out of our ratepayers.

“Our ratepayers are being punished, not because they have done something wrong, not because this council has done something wrong, but because Government departments have not been able to do the job properly, either from Stormont or Westminster.

“I believe now that Stormont is up and running again, there is a chance for local ministers to take decisions that will alleviate the pressure on those being placed on this council.

“Today we heard that there won’t be any water rises because we’re in a cost-of-living crisis. Why is it okay for the Executive to tell us that they won’t be putting additional charges on it, but that charge falls back on the council?

“There’s a lot of big changes hopefully coming over the next year. We quite rightly as council backed our workers when they went on strike, we offered them better pay.

“I don’t think anybody was coming in at a 7.4%, certainly we we weren’t coming in at 5.9%.

“Unfortunately there was a vote very quickly in this chamber tonight, we didn’t get a chance to put forward our proposal of 4.5%.

“We’ve seen this over the last number of years. The people are suffering. I work for St. Vincent de Paul and the amount of people coming to us for help has tripled in the last two years. It’s these people that we have to look after, it’s those that are going to be suffering when the prices are put up. I don’t believe – unless we’re offering substantial improvements – that they should be paying any more than they are now.”

Council chairman, Councillor Dominic Molloy intervened to dismiss the suggestion that he hadn’t given all councillors a fair chance to table their own recommendations.

“In relation to moving to a vote, go home people and play it back on YouTube, and see how long the deathly silence lasted before any other proposals came in,” said Cllr Molloy.

“I gave everyone ample opportunity to come in, make their proposals as to what they thought it should be.”

Cllr Mallaghan challenged the contention that council services had not improved: “Bluff and bluster, bluff and bluster. They’re saying to their community that they’ve seen no improvements. I think that’s an absolute insult to officers that there’s been no improvements, that’s a disgrace.

“Services are good, the things that we’ve been building. You’re either improving things for your community through your local council or you’re not, so if you want to to make a difference then and you want better services, well you have to pay for them, and this council is doing a good job as far as I can see it.”

Councillor Seán McPeake (Sinn Féin, Carntogher DEA) did not mince his words either in relation to his council colleagues who had either abstained or voted against the 5.9% rate increase,

“I’m just flabbergasted at the way the thing has worked out and and the claims that the situation was bounced upon individuals and parties,” he said.

“Everybody had their chance and their opportunity in the discussion here tonight, and I think it just reeks of political cowardice for those that are now saying they never got an opportunity.

“They had every opportunity to highlight that they felt that the the figure was going to be far too high and where the cuts should be made, but deafening silence, and this thing of abstention or voting against I think it’s political cowardice – that’s what’s happened here in this chamber tonight.”