Next week’s annual budget meeting in City Hall is expected to be a brutal clash between officials and councillors on proposed rates hikes.
The city manager, Leonard Cleary, will urge councillors to agree a 13 per cent increase in rates on commercial properties, but his plea may fall on deaf ears.
City councillors will meet on Monday next week to approve or reject a draft budget for 2026 which requires an extra €19.9 million of expenditure, compared to last year, to keep the city going.
Speaking in private to the Galway Advertiser, members of Galway city council – both in the ruling pact and without – have universally expressed opposition to any more tax raises after the last council agreed to increase Local Property Tax by 15 per cent, and commercial rates (ARV ) by six per cent, in December 2024, under threat of dissolution by the Minister for Local Government for failing to adopt a timely budget last November.
Mr Cleary is seeking to increase the Annual Rate of Valuation (ARV ) of 0.23 to 0.26, yielding an extra €4.8m per annum from owners of business premises – a sizeable chunk of money for the local authority which aims to spend €164 million to keep the city running in 2026. This is an almost €20 million increase on the €144 million it spent in 2025.
One sweetener for small businesses will be a five per cent refund in rates for those who pay less than €30,000 in rates each year – that is 93 per cent of all rate payers, according to officials – if they pay on time.
An extra €1 million in income is expected from an increase in parking fees next year, while a €250,000 per year saving is envisaged if parking meters are scrapped, based on maintenance charges and binning a seven per cent credit card handling fees.
Political reaction
It is understood that pact members – councillors from Fianna Fáil, Labour, Sinn Féin and two Independents – may agree to a four per cent raise for rate payers, but 15 per cent is “beyond the Pale” as one councillor described it. A four per cent raise would net an extra €1.9 million per year, far below the funds necessary the Executive desires to hire an extra 30 staff, including street cleaning crews and experts to tap grants from the EU.
Officials say Galway’s ARV rates lag the national average of 0.2625, and are below those of similar cities such as Dublin city 0.282, Limerick 0.2797, Cork 0.25 and Waterford 0.2798.
Councillors are expected to respond that these cities are better funded by central government, and that City Hall has so far failed to have its funding tier status improved by the Department of Local Government. This would be a political decision at cabinet level.
Galway City Council’s main income is Local Property Tax. It netted €9.85 million last year, but around €2m of this was retained by central government because the local authority is considered to be in surplus based on its population, social deprivation index and road network length. A tier status change would see this two million remain in Galway city.
‘Housing and Building’ is the area where the council is looking to majorly increase spending by 17 per cent, from €65 million, to to €76 million. Galway city is the regional hub for homeless services for counties Mayo, Galway and Roscommon.
Expenditure is anticipated to rise in most areas, including Development Management (€19m ), Environmental Services (€18m ), Recreation and Amenity (€24m ) and Miscellaneous Services (€7m ). Road Transport & Safety expenditure is remaining steady around the €16 million mark, alongside Agriculture, Education and Health which comes in at less than €500,000.
