€4.15m surplus budget allocation welcomed by Louth Labour councillors

Louth Labour representatives, Cllr Pio Smith and Mayor of Drogheda, Cllr Michelle Hall welcomed a surplus budget allocation of €4.15 million to County Louth due to the repayment of land loans legacy debt by the Department of Housing.

Louth councillors were presented with the Chief Executive, Joan Martin's Housing Loan Legacy Report at the local authority's February meeting on Monday. Louth County Council received a total of just over €45 million from the Department of Housing just before Christmas and made up of a number of elements, which the CE broke down for the members.

€35.3 million of the was directly related to the balances of the housing loans held by Louth County Council. A further €5.6 million was for land purchased by the Council that did not require a loan, as it was funded out of its own resources.

A further €1.5 million was refunded to cover some of the money paid from Internal Capital Receipts (ICRs) over the years towards interest and capital repayments of the loans. There was also €2.9 million that was used to pay interest and capital out of the Council's revenue account.

Ms Martin told members at the meeting that the government funding would mean extra expenditure for the current year would be available to the Council as a result, and put forward proposals on how the money would be spent.

The proposals included extra money for items including housing, Disabled Persons Grants, boiler servicing in local authority housing, funding for Taking in Charge of housing estates, as well as item like the fit out of the former Bank of Ireland in Dunleer for a local library.

Commenting on the report and the proposals following the meeting, Cllr Smith said, “this land loan legacy debt has been a huge burden to Louth County Council, not just financially but it inhibited the development of social housing in Drogheda.

"Currently the social housing waiting list is up to 13 years in Drogheda but with new lands being developed in the Northern Environs through Public Private Partnership, we in the Labour Party hope that the housing stock will be delivered in a timely manner."

Cllr Hall added, “Many of the representations we have raised as councillors over the year, such as disabled grants, completing housing estates to a high standard and purchasing vacant and derelict property will start to be addressed.

"It’s not often that you get additional funding outside of the budget process and we’d like to thank Chief Executive Joan Martin for the considered allocations to the spending proposal which passed unanimously on Monday.”

Councillors approved the additional spending proposals at the February meeting. €1.25 million will be spent on match funding for disabled grants to private and social housing; restoring vacant social housing properties and on the maintenance and emergency replacement of boilers. 

€2.9 million from the Revenue Account will be spent over a variety of projects including €850,000 to address housing estates that need to be brought up to standard for Taking In Charge. €250,000 will be for the electrication of the council vehicles; with €500,000 going towards increasing the number of staff in operations, landscaping and housing.

A further €1 million will go towards the purchase of derelict and vacant properties and €50,000 additional funding will go to Tidy Towns groups to improve their areas.