Mr. Shane O'Reilly:

One of our main contentions is that we have an issue with encouraging younger people to enter local politics and run as candidates in local elections. We also have a major deficit in female representation in local government. The position is that PAYE earnings must be declarable, which gives rise to a data protection issue. Local authority members are not in any category, but we are more or less category B officials. The Bill proposes that we be designated as category A officials. This provision is a major turn-off for people involved in private business because the amount one pays one's employees is commercially sensitive information. If people are required to publish details of what they pay their employees, this information could be used against their companies as other companies will be able to see precisely how much their staff are being paid. The decision to designate local authority members as category A officials is a nonsense and our purpose in attending the meeting is to deal with this issue. We fall within category B, more or less, and contend that while requiring local authority members to publish details of their PAYE incomes in the fashion proposed may not frighten people off from entering local politics, it will certainly dissuade them from doing so. Both associations regard this proposal as totally wrong.