Cllr Adrian Henchy has welcomed the budget adopted by Fingal County Council recently. In order to keep pace with continued growth across the county, Fingal County Council has adopted a spending plan of around €300m for 2022 which will help deliver improved services and see supports remain in place to help reenergise economic development in a post-Covid environment. Cllr Henchy said, “The budget is an increase of around €13m from the previous year and means the equivalent of €1012 per head of population will be spent in a number of key areas such as roads, parks, housing and the environment. While it comes against a backdrop of ever-increasing demands for the wide array of services that the council delivers, there have been no rises made to commercial rates or Local Property Tax. I very much welcome the significant increases in the budget to help deliver a range of operational services across local communities, including road maintenance, traffic management, increased street cleaning, improvement works at parks and open spaces, as well as for projects as part of the Council’s efforts to encourage active travel. Some €1.2m has also been set aside to assist the recovery and development of the tourism sector in Fingal.This is a very positive and well-balanced budget which will play an important role in Fingal’s ongoing economic recovery as we hopefully emerge from Covid. It confirms that we are committed to undertaking the necessary steps to help progress the best possible outcomes for our citizens and that we can continue to encourage business development opportunities. The budget includes allocations to the following key areas:(A) €89.1m - Housing & Building, (B) €32.7m - Road Transport & Safety, (C) €19.4m - Water Services (D) €24.9m – for Development Management, (E) €49.4m - Environmental Services, (E) €52.3m - Recreation & Amenity, (F) €1.5m - Agriculture, Education, Health & Welfare, (G) €30.4m - Miscellaneous Services. While there was a reduced number of events held in 2021 due to Covid-19 restrictions, funding allocated for 2022 will allow Fingal to host several key events which had been postponed or cancelled throughout the pandemic and means it will be able to further develop its culture and arts programme. That will see the highly popular Flavours of Fingal return in July 2022 .