Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will not rehash the arguments that Senators Paul and Mark Daly have made already. I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I have been involved in different debates on this issue over the past four years, since my time in the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, executive, and there has been very little progress. Much work has been done on this issue by the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Coveney. I appreciate that the increase in wages, as small as it is, is a step in the right direction, but my welcome for this measure stops there. The mileage presents a serious problem. One example that is given in the schedule is of a person living 26 km away who will now be €300 or €400 better off in category one. I am sure that the Minister's civil servants have created that nice story. However, most people fall into category two, which includes Carlow, Kilkenny, Westmeath, Sligo, Longford, Meath, Monaghan, Laois and Leitrim. In the same example under category one, these people are losing money, but that example does not paint a nice picture and so it is not given.

The Department has to go back to the drawing board on this matter. It is a very unfair comparison. Perhaps these people think they are dealing with dummies. In any public, private or civil body or entity, a person is paid for any mileage they do, but that is not the case here. Will the €5,000 allowance be claimable if a councillor does something apart from his or her council meeting? For example, if a community meeting is 30 km or 40 km away, can the mileage be claimed as part of the allowance available? In any other business entity, a civil or public servant can claim the money for that meeting. That is a must. In different bodies, such as the council, the AILG, and the HSE, mileage is assimilated differently. They are not assessed together. This does not happen anywhere else and I believe this will be heavily contested. It does not happen anywhere else. It is a fraud to the councillors, and it is showing them serious disrespect.