Council Briefs: Setting the local property tax, access to Balbriggan Beach, and pressing for community childcare in Donabate

Fingal County Councillors have voted to leave the local property tax (LPT) for 2025 at the same rate it’s been for the past two years.

Each year, councillors vote on how to vary the rate of the LPT, a tax on the market value of residential properties.

As usual, they can keep it at a baseline rate or increase it or decrease it by up to 15 percent, said Oliver Hunt, the council’s director of finance, at the monthly meeting on 14 October.

Two years ago, the council voted to set it at 7.5 percent below the baseline, Hunt said, rather than cut it by a full 15 percent – which put €3.3 million in discretionary funding into the 2024 budget.

Fingal’s Corporate Policy Group had recommended the same variation again, he said. Most submissions to a public consultation in July – 22 of 43 – proposed a decrease of between 11 and 15 percent.

For most homeowners, the difference between dropping it by 7.5 percent and by 15 percent would be 45c per week, he said. “That 45c per week is obviously a relatively small amount of money to the individual but to us it yields up €3.4m.”

That would allow the council to invest in a range of areas across the county, he said. “In the likes of operations, community, events, libraries, it’s given us a good bit of options in that area.”

Councillors put forward two different motions.

Labour Councillor and Mayor Brian McDonagh proposed a cut of 7.5 percent from the baseline. Sinn Féin Councillor Ann Graves argued for the maximum cut of 15 percent.

McDonagh, arguing for the smaller reduction, said the LPT provides a lot of the council’s discretionary funding. “A lot of the funding, we don’t get to decide how it’s spent. It’s decided before it comes here.”

It has helped housing, playgrounds and transfers to capital projects, he said. “One of the fears I have at the moment is that the level of inflation means we are under more pressure as to how we’re going to raise that revenue.”

Varying the rate downwards by 15 percent could mean they are in danger of having to cut back services, he said.

Councillor Graves said Sinn Féin have always put in for a 15 percent reduction, because this is a tax on people’s family homes.

The public consultation’s response wasn’t huge, but it was largely in favour of a full cut, she said. “When are we going to start listening to the people that live in Fingal?”

McDonagh’s motion to cut the tax again by 7.5 percent was voted on by councillors, with a majority of 29 coming out in its favour, while 10 opposed.

Access to Balbriggan Beach for All

Balbriggan Beach is set to get a new boardwalk as part of an effort by Fingal County Council to make it universally accessible – although it won’t be for a while.

A feasibility design and costing study for the project is being prepared by the council, said Aileen O’Connor, a senior executive parks and landscape officer at a meeting of the Balbriggan/Rush-Lusk/Swords Area Committee on 10 October.

Independent Councillor Tony Murphy had put forward a motion asking for the council to ensure that all locals – including people with disabilities and mobility issues, older people and families – could better access the beach.

The boardwalk will eventually require a full Part 8 planning application – which is the internal planning process for the council’s own projects – as well as inclusion in the council’s capital plan, O’Connor said.

That said, while these long-term plans are drawn up, the council’s Operations Department will also carry out interim measures, she said.

Including,“paths to connect the upper beach walkway to the lower beach and swimming changing area”, said O’Connor.

A ramped pathway will also assist with wheelchair access, she said. The aim, she said, is to have that done by the end of the year.

It will probably be a number of years before the beach will be fully accessible, she said. “Just because of the planning that will be involved in it, and the range of works.”

Independent Councillor Grainne Maguire welcomed the news of the boardwalk.

There are loads of events hosted on Balbriggan Beach, she said. But, “whether there are people in wheelchairs with disabilities, or parents in buggies and small children, trying to drag them across the beach, it’s not easy”.

Members of the local special needs support group Remember Us had to stop bringing service users down to the beach, because of its inaccessibility, said Sinn Féin Councillor Malachy Quinn.

“This is an unfortunate thing, and I’m really delighted that Fingal County Council are making interim moves to address that,” said Quinn.

These interim measures will include three ramps, as well as a beach mat, O’Connor said. “And that will get you onto the sand.”

For the long-term solution, once a scope of work has been prepared, the council will draw up an outline design, then it will go out for public consultation, she said. “We’re at the early stage of doing something really good.”

Community Childcare in Donabate

Fingal needs to rectify its shortage of community childcare services, said Labour Councillor Corina Johnston at the Balbriggan/Rush-Lusk/Swords Area Committee on Thursday.

In a motion, Johnston asked that the council’s chief executive ensure that a not-for-profit crèche be delivered as part of a major housing development in Ballymastone.

Glenveagh Living is developing a big housing estate at Ballymastone, just outside of Donabate. Phase one, already underway, has 432 homes.

In late August, the council gave Glenveagh Living the green light for phase two, and 364 homes.

Johnston’s motion proposed that the community crèche be recommended as a part of the third phase.

Childcare is a huge issue all over, Johnston said. But she is disturbed, she says, by the finding in a 2021 report from Fingal’s Children and Young People’s Services Committee.

That “Double Disadvantage” report says that the county has the lowest proportion of community-based childcare services in the country. It counted 20 community-based services, or 6 percent of its childcare services.

Nationally in 2021, community childcare made up 26 percent of services.

It’s unacceptable and the council needs to support young families who are struggling to afford childcare, said Johnston. “I think it’s important that we do everything we can to ensure that we do provide a not-for-profit childcare facility on this land.”

Glenveagh Living’s proposal to the council has been to build spaces for two crèches on the Ballymastone site.

But it hasn’t yet sought permission for phase three, which includes the second crèche, said Aoife Sheridan, a senior council executive officer, in a report at the meeting.

Who runs the crèche in phase three is a matter for Glenveagh and will require an agreement with an operator, she said. “The council will, however, encourage Glenveagh to consider a community not for profit operational model.”

But the council needs to be doing more, Johnston said. “Six percent is a staggering figure.”

Quinn, the Sinn Féin councillor, said that parents need access to affordable childcare in a cost of living crisis.

“It’s impacting women that have set up careers, that are working in various industries, and when they find themselves with children that they have to leave their careers,” he said.

It’s not just Donabate. Balbriggan is underserved too, he said. “Let’s not make the same mistakes that we made in the past. We developed out a town like Balbriggan and we only have one community childcare [facility].”

Fine Gael Councillor Eoghan Dockrell said the childcare crisis is acute in North Dublin. “I’ve met so many families in Donabate and Portrane who had to up and leave, and go down the country, or even stay and had to go to creches in Swords and further afield.”

Sheridan said Fingal’s Local Community Development Committee is looking to turn around the low proportion of community childcare services.

Glenveagh Living were quite open to the consideration of a community not-for-profit operational model, she said. “So that is something we’ll discuss further with them.”