Demands for forensic audit at cash-strapped Causeway Coast and Glens Council grow

Around 50 protestors waved placards and chanted demands for a forensic audit during a full meeting of the Causeway Coast and Glens Council on Tuesday evening.

This comes after the council passed an unprecedented rates hike alongside a sweeping set of cuts worth around £2.5 million.

The council has found itself in serious financial difficulty and has already drafted in the accountancy firm Price Waterhouse Cooper to provide advice.

The Chartered Institute of Public Finances and Accounts (CIPFA) was also employed earlier this year to examine the financial situation facing the council.

A report presented to councillors by CIPFA found cash reserves had dwindled from £7.9 million in March 2017 to just £1.7 million by the beginning of this year – a figure described in the report as “dangerously low”.

An SDLP proposal to hold a forensic audit was passed by a majority vote last month, but a group of six councillors drawn from the DUP, UUP and PUP enacted a legal mechanism known as a ‘call-in’ to try and block the proposal.

The call-in remains under legal consideration nearly a month later.

Paul Fitzpatrick, a schoolteacher in Ballycastle, was amongst those protesting outside the council headquarters on Tuesday.

“We are a non-political, cross-community group of protestors and we have only one simple aim – a forensic audit of the council’s finances,” Mr Fitzpatrick said.

“We turned up on Tuesday with our chants and our banners to make our views known to councillors.”

Meanwhile, the Department for Communities at Stormont has now stepped in to demand answers on what went wrong.

The minister, Deirdre Hargey, has written to the council with a series of 19 probing questions.

The council confirmed earlier this week that it has now responded. A spokesperson for the department said its officers had “received a large amount of documentation” which is now being analysed.