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 Mary Hanifin T.D. Thurles born Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sports, Mary Hanafin T.D.has announced the Irish Sports Council’s funding package for the National Network of Sports Partnerships.
The 32 Partnerships have been allocated almost €6.3 million in funding in 2010 and this will be matched by revenues from other sources bringing the total invested in local participation initiatives through these Partnerships, to more than €12.5 million in the current year.
At a meeting of the Sports Partnerships in Tullamore, Co Offaly, Minister Hanafin also launched the 2009 SPEAK (Strategic Planning, Evaluation and Knowledge) Report, the evaluation mechanism that tracks the activities of the Partnerships year on year. Among the many highlights were that 112,000 people participated in 744 directly delivered participation programmes and 3,500 clubs were supported in the delivery of their sports activity targets.
Under this announced funding, in 2010 North Tipperary will receive €178,264, while South Tipperary will receive €146,671. Women’s sports projects will further benefit by €6.500 overall for the county as a whole.
For those of our readers who would like to read the full text of the SPEAK Report, click here.
Note: This report is based on the information provided for the year 2009 by 33 Local Sports Partnerships (LSPs) using the SPEAK self-evaluation system.
 In 2009, nationally, County and City Councils spent in excess of €31 million in payments to their Councillors according to today’s Irish Times Newspaper.
In the two Riding’s of County Tipperary, the overall cost was just short of €2 million, with North Tipperary splitting €890,000 between their 21 Councillors and South Tipperary splitting €1.04 million between 26 Councillors.
According to regulations, gratuity payments, which are taxable, are made to councillors if they are not re-elected. In this regard South Tipperary and North Tipperary paid out in excess of €400,000 to former councillors. Nationally Councillors who retired or who failed to be re-elected in last year’s local elections received more than €4.76 million in gratuity payments last year.
Payments received by elected County and City Councillors include a basic salary, called a Representational Payment, which is subject to PAYE in the normal way and PRSI as appropriate.
Councillors also receive an annual allowance for reasonable expenses incurred in attending meetings associated with their council business and miscellaneous costs such as postage, travel expenses, and can also claim up to €600 in a mobile phone allowance annually.
The overall amount a councillor can spend on expenses was capped by Minister for Local Government John Gormley in February last when the Local Government Act 2001 Regulations 2010 were finalised. This limited councillors’ expenditure on conferences, seminars and other meetings or events.
Many County Councillors additionally receive payments as members of local Urban District Councils also.
The influential and well paid post of County or Local Councillor, peculiarly, remains the only employment currently obtainable within the Irish State where an Interview, IQ Test, C.V. or Educational Qualification is not part of any qualifying process and the only post where work performance is regarded as of little consequence.
 P.Hayes and PJ. Shanahan shake hands with the new Technological VAT Collector It was confirmed to Thurles Chamber of Commerce during a recent Bi-Monthly meeting with Thurles Town Clerk, Mr Michael Ryan and the County Manager, Mr Matt Shortt that VAT at the rate of 21% will officially apply to public parking in Thurles town with effect from the 1st July 2010.
This further imposition of VAT arises from a case referred to the European Court of Justice, by private cark park operators. They maintained that while they needed to charge VAT on their parking spaces, Local Authorities who are in direct competition in some cases, did not.
The European Court heard that under the European Sixth VAT Directive, if a Public Body supplies the same services as a private business then VAT is applicable to the public service. The European Court ruled that Ireland must comply with this Directive.
On 4th February a Government Finance Bill made it incumbent on Local Authorities to charge VAT on many of its services from the 1st July 2010.
Continue reading Parking Charges To Increase In Thurles
 Archbishop Alan Harper “Banks in the retail sector, who continue to refuse to perform in a socially responsible manner, should have their licences revoked,” stated the Church of Ireland’s Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland Alan E. T. Harper, OBE, at the Church of Ireland’s three day Synod, which began on Thursday last and was attended by many C of I clergy from Co.Tipperary.
In his Presidential address, Archbishop Harper stated:
“The consequences of recession are devastating for those forced into unemployment or faced with the collapse of their Companies. I recently received a letter from a GP. He described what he encounters in his consulting rooms as a result of families stressed to the limit by pressure from their banks: decent folk, pillars of the local community, reduced to tears. That GP’s observations are more than supported by the statistics of suicide in both jurisdictions.
I have no special knowledge of banking practice except the experience of being a member of a single income family throughout my working life of 45 years. I know what it is to bump along the bottom and to have to depend on an understanding bank manager in a crisis situation. I know what it means to enjoy the generosity of family and the understanding of friends. What concerns me now is the extent to which things have changed.
The effects of the restriction in bank lending have been disastrous for small and medium sized businesses, especially in the construction sector, and, consequently, for those made unemployed as businesses contract. Many employers have been forced to the wall; one long established firm I know has laid off 60% of its workforce, others have ceased trading altogether; punitive rates of interest, in some cases more than 5% above LIBOR, are being demanded; banks are reducing overdraft facilities; asset rich but cash poor businesses, often described by the banks themselves as their core customers, are being starved of the cash required to enable them to trade, yet these same small and medium sized businesses are the backbone of the local economy.
Time was when banks were either investment partnerships or retail banks. Then, starting with Salomon Brothers in the United States in 1981, partnerships were floated as corporations, transferring the risks to shareholders rather than the partners and employees, and blurring the distinctions between two very different types of activity. At this point the strength of the capitalist system in collectivizing the sharing of risk became, it could be argued, a weakness. As the financial sector sought to create more high risk credit and to invent products to spread the risk of investment among an ever widening pool of shareholders and clients, many people became involved in this area of the economy without being fully aware of the risk that they carried.”
To read the full text of Archbishop Harpers very fine address entitled “The Priority of Mission in the Church of God” click here, as it makes for some very interesting Sunday reading by all so called Christians.
 Interested in buying a house right now?
“They’re back! The creeps, the snake-oil salesmen and spoofers who condemned a generation to negative equity, are cheerleading again.
Buying a house now makes absolutely no economic, financial or social sense because prices are condemned to fall much further and anyone who buys now will be suckered into the false rally, known as a ‘dead cat bounce’. Given what we now know about the boom, it’s hard to feel sorry for someone who believes the hype-property brigade. But even a cursory glance at the financial numbers today — just a little bit of due diligence — suggests that we have a long, long way to go before house prices reach the bottom. So beware, see through the glossy brochures and don’t say you weren’t warned . . . again.”
Click here to read the full text of advice on this subject given by economist and broadcaster David McWilliams. It makes for very interesting reading and he has got it right before.
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