Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Like most colleagues, I am a former member of a local authority and we know better than most the workload involved in being a county or city councillor. However, having been here for over four years, we do not know what the workload is like now. In County Clare, the electoral area of north Clare was amalgamated with the electoral area of west Clare and the eight councillors in north-west Clare must now service a geographical area that is 50% of the land mass of the county. They must travel the bones of 80 miles, from Ballyvaughan to Kilrush, over to the borders of Ennis and back up towards Corofin. This is unworkable, unrealistic, unreasonable and unfair. It is anti-democratic and does not allow councillors the scope to do their work the way they want to whereby they know every part of their areas inside out. Unfortunately, a land mass of the size they must cover is more like a Dáil constituency. In the UK, a constituency of that size would elect an MP.

We must be realistic. The creation of these large council areas was a bizarre notion. I suspect these large areas were created in order to support smaller parties.That is fine in itself but it is totally unworkable.

The dramatic reduction in the allowances payable to local authority members that took place in the aftermath of the 2014 local elections was totally unfair. A clear indication was given at that time that the pay scales and remunerations would be favourably looked at after the elections, when the reduced number of councillors serving areas of increased size came into effect. That did not happen. What happened was the total opposite. The situation with regard to PRSI is bizarre, indefensible, inexcusable and unrealistic. If councillors were to take a case, they would certainly win on equality grounds. Why in the name of God would anyone pay PRSI to get no benefit? This is the type of thing that happens in a cuckoo republic, not a democratic state like Ireland.

These are the issues. I welcome the review group. I would like to know when it is proposed that it would come back with its recommendations. We could write out the recommendations for the review group, in particular those regarding PRSI, a review of the huge municipal districts and equitable remuneration, which would be properly vouched and controlled but fair. I believe the vast majority of people want to see public representatives paid fairly. Perhaps the media do not, but the vast majority of decent Irish people want to see people get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.