Councillor William Carey has welcomed the decision by SDCC councillors to back his call for a 50% reduction in licence fees for Casual Traders. At the recent council meeting councillors agreed a motion from Cllr Carey that casual traders should be offered reduction in fees for this year due to the loss of trading, as a result of the Covid-19 restrictions. According to Cllr Carey casual traders have seen their opportunity to trade severely restricted and yet have been required to pay for licence for a full year. These casual traders licence fees can vary from €500 (flowers) to €10,000 (ice cream) per year in order to secure their individual “pitch”.
Over the past 15 months casual traders have seen their ability to carry out their business severely restricted. Business operators throughout the county were offered a rates waiver where they could not operate normally and “I feel that casual traders should be treated in the same manner”, said Cllr Carey. Cllr Carey said that it was a no brainer that business operators should receive support through the rates waiver’s, but he felt that casual traders had been ignored and required to pay for a licence that they could not operate for the period it was intended for. Cllr Carey referred to a statement from Patricia Colfer, Administrative Officer, Dublin City Council regarding Casual trading in Dublin. “We will be writing to all traders whose licence was due for renewal from January this year to date. All traders will be given a once off 6 months reduction in their licence fee.” Cllr Carey stated that Dublin City Council had already made such an offer to casual traders and I think it is important that SDCC should do the same for casual traders operating in the county.
