Angry councillors have called for a ‘name-and-shame’ campaign to highlight the unwillingness of a minority of city traders to provide adequate funding for festive lighting this year.

Traditionally traders have arranged the Christmas festive lighting in the city centre with the city council taking care of the associated energy costs. However, with the Cork Business Association no longer playing a role in collecting the funds, the responsibility has fallen on the city council to provide financial assistance.

City Manager Joe Gavin’s proposal to seek approval for a 200,000 ‘scheme of assistance’ was passed at Monday nights City Council meeting. The proposed scheme will fund 80% of the cost for provision of the Christmas lighting, with the remaining 20%,  50,000, coming from city traders.

Business leaders in the city say they were forced to go to the City Council in search of assistance, because it has become increasingly difficult to secure financial backing from individual traders in recent years. Mr Gavin said that the majority of the 200,00 would come from rates that traders have already paid.

Councillors were quick to voice their disapproval at the ‘shameless penny-pinching’ and ‘Scrooge-like’ behaviour on the traders parts. Many councillors signalled out the large multi-national chains with headquarters in Britain as the main culprits, leading many to call for a name and shame campaign.

Donal Healy, Chief Executive of the Cork Business Association, refuted the claims of a Scrooge mentality being adopted by the Patrick Street retail sector. In a written statement, Mr Healy said, “Many stores have just completed upgrades  or are in the process of renewals at present  running into millions of euro. They pay high rates,  some figures mentioned are €400,000.00 and might also be paying similar rent figures. They expect a return on this investment by way of marketing etc.

“We feel the fairest way of funding the Festive Lights is through the rates where all ratepayers contribute and benefit alike which we proposed. The costs relating to the festive light have spiralled in the past few years and we welcome the support from Joe Gavin our City Manager and the Councillors backing of  the proposal this week that the local authority fund 80% of the costs of the city centre lights provision for the coming season.”

Comments (0) »

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment