18,000 COPIES WEEKLY Big day at Realt na Mara
Cycling glory for Eve
Awards for local students
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Wednesday, 26th September, 2012. Vol. 5, Issue 39 • 63 Clanbrassil Street, Dundalk, Co. Louth. Tel: 042 9320888. Fax: 042 9329676. Email: editorial@dundalkleader.com; advertising@dundalkleader.com
Louth facing house tax double whammy By Niamh Kirk
Louth County Council is to suffer a double whammy by being punished for the slow uptake in paying the controversial household charge. The local authority has stated that it needs the money to pay for essential services, but now will suffer further cuts to its funding for the final quarter of the year as a result of having among the worst compliance rates in the Household Charge collection. It is expected that Fine Gael Minister Phil Hogan could withhold more than half the Q4 funding to the local government depending on their performance in collecting the household charge. The councils who have
reached 65% of due payments will receive their full allocation but as the success rate lowers so too does government funding. Louth is among five counties who have struggled to reach the 60% mark, with 55.38% of those liable having paid. This is the second time this year that Minister Hogan has cut funds to Louth County Council which has already had more than €278k withheld from government funding for the third quarter of the year. The Local Government fund is a vital source of funding for the local authorities and any cut in this source of income will impact on the Local authority’s ability to balance the budget. It will also impact upon their ability to “deliver services as pro Continued on Page 15
Daniel presents €9k to Crumlin Hospital
Daniel O’Shaughnessy presents the cheque to Dr Angus O Marcaigh
By Niamh Kirk A Bellurgan man’s efforts to raise money for the ‘Fix Crumlin’ appeal has concluded with his son handing over a cheque for a staggering €8,754 to the
children’s hospital. Oliver O’Shaughnessy decided to raise money for the ‘Fix Crumlin’ hospital appeal after seeing at first hand the conditions that the staff are forced to work in. His son Daniel
suffers from a disease called severe aplastic anaemia which means his bone-marrow is unable to produce red and white blood cells. As a regular visitor to Crumlin, Continued on Page 15