Councillors to vote on €86m budget 

The proposed council budget for next year is set to increase by almost €6.5 million to €86 million. Income from the local property tax will account for €12 million of this with commercial rates making up €16 million. 

Councillors are scheduled to meet today, Wednesday, to vote on the budget, including on its 5 per cent rates increase, which the council says will only affect 4 per cent of the county’s rates payers.

Most of the budget is allocated to ‘Road, Transportation, and Safety’, which is proposed to get a total of €32.9 million, an increase on the €30.6 million figure for this year. 

The allocation for ‘Housing and Building’ is also scheduled to increase from €10.9 million to €13.1 million.

In the budget's foreword, council chief executive Shane Tiernan said that the councillors understood that the local authority’s capacity to increase funding is constrained.

“Therefore it remains essential that we continue collaborating with our ratepayers throughout 2026to maintain a high collection rate, while also driving efficiencies across all areas of service delivery.” Income from the proposed rates increase will be used as match funding to “develop and deliver an ambitious strategic capital programme for our county, he said.

“With the introduction of the ‘small business support scheme’, the increase will only impact 4 per cent of our rate payers.” 

Mr Tiernan said that housing will continue to be a key priority and that the council will “continue to deliver social and affordable housing”. This will be delivered through a variety of schemes including local authority home loans, capital delivery and other means.

In terms of planning enforcements, in 2024 there were 67 complaints received, and as of the end of September this year, 53 complaints were made to the council.

“This contributed to a total of 248 open cases in the system at the end of Q3 2025,” the draft document said. “Planning enforcement activity in 2024 and 2025 has shown that an increasing number of planning enforcement cases necessitate progression to court due to failure to comply with enforcement notices. In addition, there are also increasing instances of court outcomes being appealed to a higher court, thereby necessitating the council’s continued participation.”