Mayo councillors vote to keep the current base rate for local property tax despite calls for a reduction
LPT in Mayo is estimated to bring in €10.13m in 2026. The Exchequer will then allocate €11.88m as part of the Equalisation fund. This gives Mayo County Council a baseline fund of €22.01m for the year.
Fianna Fáil councillor, Damien Ryan, rejected the recommendation and proposed that the base rate remains at 10pc.
'You recommend 15pc but you don't have to go out and sell it the way we have to sell it. I suppose at the end of the day we want to be wise and prudent about how we do things here. We're in extremely uncertain times, the 30pc tariffs coming across the Atlantic are going to have a huge impact on Ireland.'
Keeping the base rate at 10pc would raise €1.01m in LPT income. Of this, €200,000 would be ring-fenced for verge trimming, and €400,000 would go towards the match funding contribution for Clár, the Town and Village Renewal Scheme (TVRS) and other similar schemes.
Cllr Ryan proposed a provision be made for €100,000 to go toward addressing the backlogs in processing applications for housing grants such as Croi Conaithe.
Fine Gael councillor Peter Flynn seconded this proposal.
Independent councillor, John O'Malley, rejected any raise in the base rate. He spoke of families facing food and fuel poverty and families in rural areas in the county,
'There are families out there who are finding it hard, especially in rural areas,' he said. 'We pay a property tax in the rural area but we don't get street lights, footpaths, water, or sewerage. We don't get any of that paid for.'
'I can't support any increase in LPT, it's not fair to go asking rural people to pay more.'
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Cllr O'Malley proposed reducing the base rate to 0pc. His motion was seconded by Cllr Michael Kilcoyne, who reminded the council that they also had the power to decrease the rate by 15pc. He reiterated that people in rural areas are being treated unfairly and said: 'you're asking people to pay 25pc more than they should have to.'
Councillors Harry Barrett, Patsy O'Brien, Chris Maxwell and Deirdre Lawless all seconded the proposal made by Cllr O'Malley and spoke out for families in rural Ireland.
'I want to see people having a little bit of money left over at the end of the month, not having extra charges tacked on here, there and everywhere,' Cllr Barrett said. 'They say 'every little helps' but it doesn't help in this scenario, every little is actually sending people under.'
In response, Cllr Ryan stressed he was not proposing an increase but only arguing that the base rate be maintained.
'This decision is to hold it at the same rate it has been since 2020. We're holding it at the same rate to try and get economic development in each of our regions,' he said.
'For us to become effective going forward, the only way you can function is with sound economics and you have to underpin that with finance.'
Cllr Ryan warned that reducing the base rate to 0pc would result in a loss of €2.5 million for the council, while maintaining the current rate would keep it functioning financially. Cllr Ryan recognised that change is needed in relation to local authority funding, he argued that the Department of Finance should restore Block Grants as the current Equalisation Fund only contributes to the urban and rural divide since urban councils have larger base rates.
The vote to hold the base rate of LPT at 10pc was passed 17 votes to eight. All 17 who voted in favour are representatives for either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
This article has been funded by the Local Democracy Scheme
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