Tipperary row as cuts to Tidy Towns and residents’ groups funding branded ‘mean-spirited’
A decision to give less money to Tidy Towns and residents’ associations in Tipperary has been called “mean-spirited,” by a local representative.
Independent councillor Liam Browne said that community groups across the Tipperary-Cahir-Cashel Municipal District should be given increased funding for grass cutting and general maintenance as they’re doing a job that the council used to do years ago.
“I’m not happy with the allocations, there should be a further discussion on that and money should be moved from other sources, considering the position we’re in now with the cost of cutting grass, I think it’s mean-spirited,” Cllr Browne said.
"I understand we’re in a tight budgetary situation but I would say no, I wouldn’t agree with that, and I propose that we go and talk about it again and see if we can move money from someplace else.
"A lot of this stuff was done by the council, and it’s not any more. It’s a tiny amount of money, €58,000 wouldn’t pay for one extra council worker that we’ve taken out of council work schemes, that we’ve taken away from the GSS’ (general support supervisor), and that we’ve taken away from different departments,” he added.
Responding to Cllr Browne’s calls, Fine Gael councillor John Crosse said that the council executive went “over and beyond” the call of duty to try and address concerns previously raised by the independent councillor.
“Sometimes you need to be careful what you wish for, if we go back again, it might make a situation that has been created by yourself and not by the executive or the members here, making it worse again," Cllr Crosse said.
Agreeing with Cllr Browne was fellow Cashel-based councillor Declan Burgess, who said that residents groups are being left to “fend for themselves”.
"I think reducing the residents’ associations significantly is a negative decision, and I know we're doing the best with the funding we’ve been allocated, but as councillors we can allocate further funding through this scheme,” he said.
"Costs are going up, and a lot of these residents’ associations are left to fend for themselves,” Cllr Burgess added.
Independent councillor for Cahir Andy Moloney said that for a lot of groups, their funding gets swallowed up by insurance, and called for some kind of insurance scheme to be run by the council.
"We need to seriously look at an insurance scheme for each one of the residents groups, because I know of some estates that are paying €350 for insurance for the year.
"We’re going to turn around and give them €650, so technically they’re only getting €300, so under the Public Participation Network (PPN) and IPB (the council’s insurers) and ourselves, we need to come up with some kind of an approach to cut down on the unnecessary spending of insurance money,” Cllr Moloney said.
Despite the proposal ultimately being approved, several councillors signalled that the issue is far from settled, with calls for funding levels and support measures to be revisited in the coming year.