This week it emerged that Cork City Council will have to find more than €275,000 for their 2016 budget, after a shock shortfall was revealed.

It is not clear yet how the money will be made up, just a month after the budget was narrowly passed on 16 November. Furthermore, the council will have to make up more than a million euro in lost rates each year, from 2017 on.

This week, city council officials flagged a shortfall, likely to be €283,639, following a question from Sinn Féin Cllr Mick Nugent on Monday night at a meeting of Cork City Council. Lord Mayor Chris O’Leary described the announcement as “astonishing”. The budget was agreed a few weeks ago after councillors were told that there would be a loss in rates income of €762,000.

In fact, the figure was revealed to be a loss of €1.035m as a result of a global utilities revaluation in November. Global valuations of public utility undertakings are carried out every five years by the Commissioner of Valuation.

At the time of the budget meeting, Sinn Féin’s Cllr Thomas Gould lost a vote seeking clarification on the possible loss to the council of the income. He said this week that his party would raise the issue again.

“Every year, City Council is going to be short at least one million. We passed a budget that wasn’t true,” he said this week.

At budget time, Cork City Council staff informed councillors that the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government had informed them that the City Council would be fully compensated for the loss in income. This week, councillors were informed that this was not the case and Cork City Council would only receive compensation of €751,361, only 73 per cent of the total loss.

Head of the Finance Department John Hallahan said the loss in rates income to Cork City Council, as a result of the global utilities revaluation, is €1.035m, substantially higher than the €762,000 figure quoted at the budget meeting in November.

“This is higher than previously reported due to the fact that the Ervia building on Gasworks Road, previously classified as offices/retail warehouse, has now been reclassified into a global valuation for Gas Networks. There was a 40 per cent reduction in Gas Networks Ireland’s global utility revaluation,” he said.

“The Department of Environment, Community and Local Government advised Cork City Council on 20 November that the City Council would be fully compensated for this loss in rates income. The Department subsequently advised Cork City Council in a letter dated 9 December that the calculations contained errors and further advised that the City Council would receive compensation of €751,361,” he added. He also confirmed that the department has said that this is a once-off adjustment for 2016 and will not be available from 2017 on.

Cllr Gould said the Government were robbing €1m from the people of Cork city and €2m from the people of Cork county, due to the changes. “€3m is a huge amount of money for the people of Cork.”