Inishowen business owners threaten “rates strike”

Inishowen business owners have threatened to withhold rate payments in an attempt to have the pensinsula designated “special status” during the current economic crisis. Business owners from across the region took the decision at a meeting held in the Ballyliffin Lodge Hotel on Thursday night last. Around 150 people, from individual small business owners to those involved in the retail, shirt-making, farming, construction and fishing sectors, attended the meeting organised by the Ballyliffin Development Group. A “show of hands” at the end of the two-hour meeting backed a proposal to hold a threatened “rate strike.” Earlier, elected members of Donegal County Council and Buncrana Town Council along with a number candidates in next month’s elections, addressed the gathering before coming under severe crticisim during a “open floor” debate. Before proceedings got under way, Chris Moore, the renowned freelance journalist and broadcaster, who chaired the meeting, invited those present to sign a petition calling for a “task force” to be set up to address the “economic crisis” in the peninsula. The petition reads: “We , the undersigned are appealing for an immediate review of the serious economic crisis facing Inishowen. We urgently require a Task Force to be set up to address our real issues to deal wih the economic crisis in which Inishowen is engulfed. We want a Task Force then to meet the businesses and generanl community and develop a blue print to carry us out of this abyss.” In his opening address, Cecil Doherty, IDG chairperson, said the peninsula merited a case for “special circumstances” given its close proximity to the border and the difference in VAT rates and sterling-euro exchange rate. Hitting out at water and rate payments, Mr. Doherty said reductions were needed to enable businesses to survive. He added: “It’s not that people don’t want to pay, they can’t.” He added Inishowen was getting very little in return from rate payments. He said: “We can’t sustain 100,000 rates when they can’t sweep the street for you. It is all done through FAS or voluntary. We bring thousands of visitors to Ballyiffin every year and we can’t get a road sweeper.” Claiming the banks were “prohibiting meaningful development” refusing credit and decreasing overdrafts by up to 40 per cent, he said it was time “Inishowen stood up for ourselves.” He added: “How are we expected to survive if we are being squeezed? How can our political masters stand over the debacle that has happened over the past 10 months then impose taxes and make us unable to compete.” He was also critical of An Bord Pleanala. He said: “When developers are prepared to take the risk they should be given the God-given right to speak to the planners.The system needs to open up and help developers.” He added: “How long are we going to sit at this wake, this corpse that is Inishowen.”