Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. I am here to represent those who are my electorate, as any other politician does, and I make no apology for being here.

The Minister of State needs to make up his mind about whether councillors are employees. If they are not, we need to talk about the allowances that are paid to them and we need to pay them the correct amount. The sort of figures that have been thrown around, such as €35,000, seems to be reasonable.

He said the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform needs a rationale, but let me give the Minister a rationale. If he wants high-quality people looking after the Government's party interests on the ground, he should pay them the money and he will get them. The council needs to be accessible to all, that is, single mothers, unemployed people and people of all ages. If they are not paid, the Government will not get them.

I could go through many matters but I know the committee is under time pressure. On PRSI, I wrote the first report on class K PRSI and delivered it to the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection. I took the Minister of State's Department to the High Court on PRSI and class K, and it capitulated immediately in regard to the five councillors I brought to the High Court, giving them a reward. The previous Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Varadkar, introduced class S for councillors, which was a good move but it was not good enough because of those who are not in private employment and those who became unemployed after becoming councillors. I have a case on my table of a county councillor who applied for optical benefit. He was paying a rate of 4%, which is the same as anyone on class A, he went for optical benefit last week for a miserable pair of glasses and he was told he did not qualify because he had broken his PRSI record. He was told he must move to retrospectively recognise the 4% that was paid by every county councillor since he or she was elected. It is unjust to say the least, and it is morally wrong in every way that people are being denied the same social welfare entitlements that anyone else who pays 4% gets.

The issue of pensions brings me back to the issue of pay. If councillors are not servants, and if there is no servant-master relationship, we need to decide what they are and ensure they have a pension. Nobody in the Houses will leave without a pension, however small it may be. At the end of the day, we must look after those we expect to represent people. The difference between me and a county councillor is that I can enter a public toilet and leave without anyone stopping me or asking me if I can assist with this or that problem. I have never been a county councillor and I do not know why so many of them do it, because we do not care about them and if we do not care about them, the public see them as something to be used. It is time we put them on an equal footing with everyone else in politics and looked after them.