Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make just a couple of quick points before I go to the Seanad to vote. This boils down to pounds, shillings and pence. The way one respects people is by paying them well. The old quintessential saying in my part of the world is, "You pay peanuts, you end up getting monkeys." This is what will happen eventually if we do not deal with this problem. While I have the utmost respect for Ms Moorehead, whom I do not know and whom I have never met, this problem is simple and can be dealt with simply. It is about more money for people doing an incredibly hard job. The municipal districts structure which came into existence in 2014 after the local elections thwarted like an elephant the work that was done by county councillors. Unfortunately, the Minister of State's fellow countyman, Phil Hogan, substantially reduced the remuneration councillors received. I would like to see the report published with recommendations for a substantial increase in salary. If people are working full time at this, they will pay the standard rate of tax on their salaries. If it is a part-time job for some people working in the private sector, they will ultimately pay a higher rate of tax, so eventually an equilibrium is achieved anyway.

This has gone on so long that the least councillors deserve is that, whatever recommendations are made, this be backdated to when these discussions started, which is probably two years ago at this stage. When Noel Dempsey introduced the changes in 2002, they were backdated to the day after the 1999 local elections. The Minister of State knows this himself because he was a councillor at the time. I am not looking for such a backdating; I am just looking for whatever is decided to be backdated to the beginning of this discussion process, when it became an issue and when Government accepted it was an issue that needed to be dealt with. There is precedent for backdating it going back to 2002. I thank the Chairman for her indulgence.