NAAS 10 January 2003: Naas councillor Seamie Moor had declared himself 'incensed' at what he claimed was a '25 per cent' increase in the County Charge element in the Town Council's Draft Budget. He was clearly prepared to verbally shred the Kildare County Council finance director on the matter whenever Eamonn O'Sullivan arrived to explain it to councillors last Tuesday.
In the event, he and his fellow councillors ended up hearing news that they would rather not have heard, that the basis for estimating the charge will be reviewed during the year, and it will likely end up a lot more in future.
In the process, Cllr Moore had to rethink his maths, as Eamonn O'Sullivan pointed out that the E1.06 million charge for services provided by KCC to Naas was in fact only something over 10 per cent more than last year.
It was the new county finance director's first outing with the Naas Town Council. And he proved himself not just well able for political mouthing, but a very articulate and clear explainer of the intricacies of the County Charge (formerly the County Demand).
We all learned. Such as the fact that 85 per cent of the cost of all the services provided to the people, households and businesses of Kildare are borne by Kildare County Council itself.
That under the admittedly archaic 'produce of a penny' system of apportioning the cost of the balance to the two former UDCs in the county, Naas pays a little less than 10 per cent of the whole, and the balance is paid by the Athy town authority.
The 'produce of a penny' system is not really suitable for today, Eamonn said. And then dropped the bombshell. That under more modern methods of evaluating the dues, Naas could well be paying between 11 per cent and 13 per cent of the total county expenditure.
You could feel the shivers running down the collective councillor spines. Next year's Budget discussions are already looking decidedly bleak. And they have been warned
Meantime, the principal costs involved in the County Charge, as explained by Eamonn O'Sullivan, include E29,000 for traveller accommodation, E323,000 for improvements to National Routes and regional Roads, E108,000 for the work of the director of Community and Enterprise, E214,000 for the Naas portion of the County Fire Service, E300,000 towards the Library Service, E68,000 as a share of the administration of the HEA grant scheme, money towards the Courts Service, finance and IT services, and the HR services provided by KCC.
There's more, of course, but the county finance director wasn't falling into the trap of giving the small detail. Leave them gasping with the big ones is a much better strategy.
Besides, he had thrown them a face-saving bone. Naas Town Council has its own traveller accommodation programme, and could conceivably argue that it is doing its bit there.
Seamie Moore also cribbed about the share which Naas has to give towards national and regional roads, and said that he'd like to see 'more concrete being laid in Naas' for the money. "Why should we be paying for the rest of the county's roads? We have to go begging for money any time we want to resurface the Sallins Road."
To which Eamonn O'Sullivan gave the obvious answer. That without those same roads, nobody would be able to travel into or out of Naas.
That prompted visions of a medieval and gated town, but this time with the inhabitants not being allowed OUT because they hadn't contributed to the public highways outside.
In the end, O'Sullivan had earned his name the rank of Mór. And far from being what Seamie Moore had earlier described as a 'catacomb of a black hole into which money disappears', the County Charge was a very transparent affair.
That was another quiet lesson in itself for a council that is not always as clear with the details of its own business.
