Monday December 12th - Kerry County Council will hold their monthly meeting in Milltown Community Centre. It is traditional to hold the December (Christmas Meeting) in the home town of the Mayor. We will be hosted by Michael O'Shea in the brand new state of the art Milltown Community Centre.

My notices of motion for the meeting are as follows;

*That we write to the relevant bodies to ascertain why the proposed changes to auditing requirements that were mooted to facilitate voluntary and community organisations have not been introduced. It is grossly unfair and expensive to insist that clubs, societies and voluntary community groups should have to undertake the full costs of fully audited accounts by professional financial advisers when most of the areas covered are no- applicable.

*That we write to Customs and Excise seeking clarification around how they have applied duty rates to specific champagnes/ sparkling wines. It was the case that the duty was determined by the bars of pressure per bottle. This was clearly indicated on the label. Drinks with less than 2.5 bars of pressure were assigned the lower rate and those above were levied at the higher rate. Recently importers and distributors have been told that it will be determined by the kind of cork used on the bottle. This has immediately hit several distributors who have seen a significant decrease in competitiveness and has resulted in a loss of business for them. Given the importance of the hospitality industry to our county fairness needs to be established here.