25-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
‘Miniscule' funding allocated to help brighten up one Tipperary town
At the July meeting of the Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District, councillors were told that just €2,124 has been allocated under the Painting Enhancement Scheme.
The Painting Enhancement Scheme aims to support property owners in the primary retail areas of towns to improve and enhance their properties and public areas.
Grants of up to 50 per cent of the total cost of painting, up to a maximum of €500 are available to property owners to brighten up their properties under the scheme.
However, the allocation for Carrick-on-Suir has been criticised as being very limited.
Cllr Kieran Bourke said that the funding amount is 'miniscule' and said that painting can be an expensive job.
"It seems a miniscule amount of money for a painting enhancement scheme, to get a door painted it could cost you a couple of hundred euro,' he said.
The district administrator explained that funding is allocated from Tipperary County Council.
"This funding is coming from the economic section and we would say that it's a maximum of €500 or 50 per cent of what you've spent, so in order to get €500, you need to have spent €1,000, if you spend less you can get up to 50 per cent,' the district administrator explained.
"But you're essentially only supporting four to five people maximum in the district,' she added.
Other districts across Tipperary sometimes chose to match the funding allocation in order to support more people, the meeting was told, but this hasn't been the case in Carrick-on-Suir so far.
"My thoughts were to come back to you if we had a huge uptake, and say this is the uptake we have, and do we want to allocate some funds from GMA (General Municipal Allocation) if we didn't get some of the bigger projects that we needed matched funding for perhaps,' the administrator told councillors.
The GMA is discretionary funding allocated to municipal district members within a local authority's draft budget.
Cathaoirleach of the district David Dunne said that the issue of matched funding could be looked at if there is money remaining in the GMA, but that any funding to help towards the cost of paint is a help to property owners.
"If you could get €100 or €200 worth of paint, at least it goes a little bit towards trying to do something, I know it's not a whole lot but that's what we have to deal with unfortunately,' Cllr Dunne said.
