Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to listen to us. I will keep my remarks to the circular issued by Mr. Gary McGuinn, assistant principal officer, which was circulated to us, which was really the announcement of what the Minister is talking about today. I want to address a few points the Minister raised in the circular and which he put on the record here today. I note that the Minister was a county councillor in Cork County Council. That is one of the councils not affected by the withdrawal or cutback of €1,000. I will tease that out in a minute.

The Minister is very aware of the councils and their role and their function, and I want to commend him, as I have done before, on Rebuilding Ireland and his reform of local councils. However, the Minister's brief is housing, planning, community and local government, and sometimes people forget that. The Minister is often seen as just the Minister for housing, but we know that he is far bigger than that and that there are many more issues that he wishes to bring before us. I know how it works, having been a councillor first elected in 1999. I am not going to give a history lesson on councillors. We know that there are 949 city and county councillors in Ireland. We know from independent surveys that they work approximately 44 hours per week. We know that 40% of the councillors are full time, and their only earned income is their €16,000. We know that many councillors, particularly women, tell us that they are constantly dipping into the family income, their housekeeping money, to subsidise their work on behalf of their communities. Councillors are usually the first responders at crises in their own communities, and the Minister knows that. There are a variety of councillors, be they party councillors or independent councillors working for communities.

The reality of the Minister's decision regarding not giving the €1,000 to some councillors will affect 31 Cork city councillors, 18 Galway city councillors, 62 Dublin city councillors, 40 from South County Dublin Council and 40 from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, which I have been on for many years. That is a total of 232 councillors out of 949. Many of the Senators here today were councillors themselves, so they know and understand how it operates. I have told the Minister that many young people have told me in the last few months that they are considering leaving local government.These are good, young, talented men and women who want to bring something to their communities but simply cannot afford it. Not all councillors have ambitions to be in the Seanad and not all have ambitions to be in the Dáil. They are happy, content and fulfilled working for their local communities and we should support them. Not all of them will be doing newsletters, making circulars, photocopying or all the other things the Minister mentioned regarding expenses. They are happy to communicate with their little parish, their ward or their community for their betterment. Councillors want to work with the Minister. The Minister spoke about boundaries and the reform of local councils and he has a lot of things on his agenda. He knows what all 31 councils are up to. I am looking for fair and equal treatment of all councillors in this country and the Minister can deliver that.

I will ask a few things of the Minister. We do not have to make a decision today and the Minister can go away and think about it. He has time to reflect on it. If councillors had fair pay in the first place they would not be coming back to us all the time. I want fair pay for a fair day's work for county councillors and I want the Minister to look at pay restoration. I am in receipt of a circular from a senior staff member in his Department who set out the relationship of Deputies, Senators and councillors and how councillors could possibly benefit from pay restoration. It makes for a sad picture. In 2008 there were in excess of 1,700 councillors and there are fewer now. I want the Minister to reconsider the question of doubling the existing fixed allowances. I acknowledge the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Leo Varadkar, and what he has done in respect of making PRSI more fair and I have no doubt the Minister played a part in it. Let us have equal, fair treatment of all our councillors. I ask the Minister to come back to us and we will have opportunities to discuss it in the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government.