Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I would make two points. The reality is that if there is not additional provision in the budget, this issue in respect of councillors is not going to be dealt next year. I agree with bringing the Minister in. That would be the Minister of State responsible for this, Deputy Peter Burke. Bringing the author of the report and the Minister of State in is fine. That is the way to do it. However, we may want to wait until after the budget given that, realistically speaking, one will not get a meeting beforehand.

I would say we had an appalling scene in the previous Dáil - Senator Boyhan will remember this well - where we had the most packed committee meeting we ever had dealing with councillors' pay. Now I am a strong advocate of giving councillors proper pay but there was literally four times the membership of the committee coming in to make the case. Only the week before, we had a meeting on homelessness and there were almost no members of the committee present. The point I would make is there is a public perception around this issue that we need to get right. I share that with the members because the committee was heavily criticised publicly, and knocked by any comment of any member of the committee, about it. It was a real issue for us.