At the annual Dublin City Council budget meeting on January 14, 2014 the Fianna Fail group on Dublin City Council will seek the support of Councillors from all parties and none for their motion to reject the budget proposed by the City Manager.

We reject the draft budget and call on all other Councillors to reject it because it is a bad deal for Dublin. The draft budget is unfair and targets the most vulnerable people in Dublin, hard-pressed homeowners, city council tenants and families.

On the 12th march 2013 Minister Hogan stated that 80% of Local Property Tax collected in Dublin City would be spent on local services in Dublin City. Yet despite more than 90% of homeowners in the city paying the local property tax, and almost €40million set to be collected, Minister Hogan has only given Dublin City Council €2million as part of our Local Government grant. As a direct consequence of the Minister’s decision to keep the local property tax money and cut funding to the City Council the draft budget prepared by the City Manager includes a massive rent increase of 14% for city council tenants (many of whom are already in rent arrears), a substantial €5million cut in funding for homeless services, cuts to funding for disability grants, reduction in funding for libraries, parks and pitches.

We will call for a rollcall vote and every Councillor will be given the opportunity to vote on the following Fianna Fail motion:

The elected members of Dublin City Council thank the City Manager and staff for their work preparing the 2014 draft City Budget. We reject the draft budget because it directly contradicts the Government’s promise of March 2013 that 80% of Local Property Tax collected in Dublin City would be spent in Dublin City and it unfairly targets the poorest and most vulnerable in Dublin. We resolve to suspend the budget meeting and call on the Government to provide Dublin City Council with 80% of all the Local Property Tax collected in Dublin City to spend on local services.