Tipperary councillors who voted for LPT increase have 'let county down'

The 21 Tipperary councillors who voted for the increase in the Local Property Tax at this month's Tipperary County Council property tax have let the county down, according to Cllr Seamus Morris.

"Over the last few glorious weeks Tipperary teams have been victorious in three All-Irelands and one FAI Cup victory, showing incredible belief in themselves and pride in their county. Last week, however, 21 of our county councillors sold the county short when they allowed Tipperary County Council impose another unnecessary tax on the people of Tipperary, based on thenarrative propagated by the CEO that somehow Tipperary was the poor relation in the country “dependent” on €16m from the equalisation fund to keep us alive economically," he said.

Cllr Morris said that, to him, this was a huge smokescreen to hide the fact that since the amalgamation of the seven district councils in Tipperary into one, central government had held back over €100m of local government funding from Tipperary, including over €15m for Nenagh alone.

The amalgamation, after five years of trying had failed miserably. The most basic of requests from councillors go unsolved for months and months and it is getting worse, he said.

The Independent councillor said that housing provision was at crises point and efforts by Tipperary County Council to "raid the pockets of council tenants" had failed, with rent arrears still lingering at over €1m and this did not include HAP or RAS arrears.

He said that council housing stock was deteriorating at an alarming rate and the costs for emergency accommodation in Tipperary up to the the end of August just short of €600,000.

"The 21 councillors who hid behind the CEOs narrative have let down the people of Tipperary, who in car tax and property tax alone paid €56m to central government, while only getting back less than half of that. And that does not cover heavy excise duties on fuel on a car dependent county (70% of households need cars in Tipperary), PRSI, VAT, etc," he said.