Two Left Bloc MPs have emphasised the need for central government to fund the fire fighting service from the State Budget, rather than leave it to councils which may use monies raised by Civil Protection supplements to fund other services.
In today’s statement, the bloquistas Cecília Honório and Helena Pinto argue that additional demands for money to fund civil protection services in some municipalities, such as in Portimão, are simply an "attempt to raise revenue for those municipalities on the brink of bankruptcy" and not "to fund any sort of service."
This statement echoes what many Portimão residents thought when letters demanding more money for firemen hit their doormats two weeks ago, not long after Portimão mayor Isilda Gomes had handed over a new fire engine to the local Bombeiros costing ratepayers €180,000 at a time when the council owes around €130 million with little realistic chance ever of paying it back.
The Left Bloc MPs said that in some of municipalities local property rates already are set at the maximum level allowed and for councils to ask for more money for civil protection is a ruse to fund the council rather than the fire service.
According to MPs, the new demand for moeny also has created an uneven playing field, because there are "situations where it only is applied to citizens and leaves out businesses."
Isilda Gomes said she was surprised that there had been such a degree of protest outside Portimão council’s head office obver her fundraising ploy but that as the plan had been passed by the council several years ago, people should have known all about it.
Her concession was that people on low incomes or who cannot afford it will not have to pay the rates supplement, thus causing more confusion at a time when every cent is being carefully counted.
Sra Pinheiro, one of the Portimão protestors, said that she was in the position of having to pay the rates supplement instead of a new gas bottle that would have seen her through the winter. She has no way of borrowing the money and claims never to have been in debt in her life.
Cental government funding of the nation's fire services may be another good idea passed over because of 'no money.'
The reliance of local fire services on local fundraising and council grants perhaps is not the right way to run such a critical service.