John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I got a little ahead of myself earlier. This is my first time to deal with social welfare legislation and I am trying to deal with all of the amendments. I jumped in a little bit early on this issue. We welcome this and what I said already stands. I am a former councillor, and many councillors throughout the State work seven days a week doing an awful lot of work. The changes made in 2014 enhancing the powers of local authorities and councillors also increased their workload. Many are trying to hold down part-time jobs or permanent jobs as well as being a councillor and it is becoming more and more difficult to do this. More and more councillors are becoming full-time public representatives. To pay PRSI contributions and get nothing in return is a serious injustice in the context of the work they do. We welcome this as a first step and, as I stated previously, we hope it can be extended with more benefits extended to councillors who do enormous work in public office and work lengthy hours. We welcome this as a starting point.