The chief executive of Waterford Council hopes a decision on the financial doom faced by local authorities will be made in the coming weeks.
It emerged yesterday (Wednesday) that the council is facing a shortfall of 8.3 million euro due to the pandemic.
A national review of the situation by the government is yet to be completed.
Michael Walsh says the council is awaiting details on a commitment by the government.
"The sector has been making a case to government in terms of all of these issues
"We do have a commitment but not the detail on the rates waiver scheme, that is commitment by government to €260m at national level.
"If we were to receive what we would consider to be a reasonable proportion of that it would represent around €3m in terms of our income or a little over it, which would obviously limit the exposure."
He says it's inevitable that a decision will be made in the next month.
"I'm still hoping, along with all my colleagues, not just Waterford, that we will get a favourable decision.
"It's inevitable in the next month, one way or the other, there will be certain local authorities coming under cash-flow pressures
"We will need and we will get an answer regardless of what happens at national political level there will need to be a decision in this area in the next month."
The new mayor of Waterford City and County Damien Geoghegan says the council has a tough time ahead of them but he intends to lead from the front.
The Fine Gael Councillor was elected at the WIT Arena yesterday after he was nominated by party colleague Lola O'Sullivan and seconded by Fianna Fáil's James Tobin.
He says the council is facing into challenging times:
"We were given a briefing here today to say that our finances collapsed by over €8.3m and that's just a rough estimate so there's really challenging times ahead.
"It's my job as Mayor to put the best case forward that I can for Waterford to central government and the agencies to invest in Waterford
"We need to continue to support businesses, many people's livelihoods disappeared overnight." He added that "people found themselves out of work, businesses closed down, sectors such as the hospitality, food sector and retail were really badly hit. It's our job to bring it back," the new mayor concluded.
