Tag Archives: costs

ENNIS Town Council is facing legal bills totalling more than €500,000 defending two separate High Court challenges to national legislation and regulation. A case involving a challenge to the Ennis Casual Trading Bylaws 2011 has resulted in an overall cost of €147,000 to the council. A separate challenge regarding the deregulation of taxis, currently awaiting decision in the High Court, is expected to cost around €400,000. The figures were released during this week’s meeting of Ennis Town Council to agree its budget for 2014. Town manager Ger Dollard stated the council is “seriously concerned regarding the number of cases falling to the council to defend but representing a challenge to national legislation and regulation”. Following a number of High Court hearings, the council secured a settlement in relation to the case taken regarding the Ennis Casual Trading Bylaws 2011, which represented a challenge to the Casual Trading Act 1995 and, in particular, the status of casual trading vis-a-vis market rights. …

A CLARE mother is facing the grim prospect of being forced to sell her family home or pay up to €114,000 over the next five years to cover the cost of long-term care for her incapacitated husband. Councillor Tom McNamara has claimed the mother is getting a “raw deal” under the Fair Deal Nursing Homes Support Scheme because the needs of her two dependant children are not taken into account, due to an anomaly. Councillor McNamara has requested Health Minister Dr James Reilly to change the current legislation to alleviate the distress being caused to this mother, as well as other similar hardship cases. Under the existing scheme, the couple are jointly assessed to pay €600 weekly on top of the Fair Deal allowance to cover the cost of the husband’s long-term residential care in a Clare nursing home. However, the most the mother can pay is €700 a month, leaving the remainder as a burden, which continues indefinitely on …