Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. Having been a county councillor for a number of years, I understand the usual challenges as well as those that this Bill will pose in terms of the workload.

I wish to address the issue of PAYE salaries. Realistically, everyone will have to have a source of income other than his or her remuneration as a county councillor, which I worked out for myself as being less than €1 per hour while covering a constituency 100 miles long. I know the challenges in that regard. Are the witnesses worried that information on PAYE salaries could be used against public representatives? Would making information available, just not publicly, be a way around that? A data protection issue was mentioned. Has the AILG received legal advice to the effect that this would contravene data protection legislation?