Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not want to go over ground that has already been covered last week and again this evening. I welcome the Minister of State back to the Seanad on this very important issue. I know that above all recent Ministers he is most aware of the difficulties that councillors are facing. He was one himself and I know his sister was a councillor. He is in daily contact with his own councillors in County Kilkenny and working very closely with them.

From talking to councillors throughout the Twenty-six Counties they are united in one belief and that is that they feel let down. They feel let down by all of us. They also say to me that there has been enough talk and while I welcome the Minister of State's review, and I will refer to that in a second, they feel that there has been enough talk. They are fed up of letters from Senators telling them all the work that we are doing on their behalf.They cannot go to the local shop and buy groceries for their families with those letters. I know that the Minister of State has inherited this issue but he has now signed off on it and councillors are not at all happy about this. As Senator Mac Lochlainn and others here stated already, we have to bite the bullet once and for all when it comes to this review. We as Deputies and Senators are well paid and well resourced to do our jobs, but the first port of call and the main pillar of our democracy is our councillors. If we value democracy then we will value these men and women on our local authorities, and we can start by paying them a living wage.

We in Fianna Fáil are preparing a paper for submission to the Minister of State, and in order to formulate Fianna Fáil policy on this matter. We believe that councillors should be paid a basic salary, equivalent to a third of that of a Senator. These people are not civil servants; they are politicians. As the first pillar of our democracy their pay should be linked to this Parliament, and I suggest that be in the form of a third of a Senator's salary. We also need to pay them proper expenses for doing their job. If not, as Senator Mac Lochlainn has suggested today, we will end up with hobby councillors who can afford the office. Senator Buttimer said that our councillors focus on service, community and people. It is true that they do all of those things. They have to be able to live, however, and we are not affording them the opportunity to do so.

I compliment the representative organisations that are working extremely hard and extensively on many of the issues that are currently very important to local authority members. These matters include, to mention but a few: the national planning framework; the public services Bill; and the funding of local government. Along with trying to get better pay and conditions for their members, this is the kind of work currently being undertaken by the representative organisations, the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, and the Local Authorities Members Association, LAMA.

I know that we are pushing an open door here with the Minister of State. I know that he is having difficulties with his officials. When it comes to some of those officials it would be far easier to get certain things through the eye of a needle than get better pay for councillors. We are going to have to stand up and take on these officials, and indeed take on the media, which would happily have us all out sweeping Kildare Street and paying for the privilege. That is how highly we as politicians are regarded by the media. We stand up for our own pay and conditions and now we have to stand up and be counted when it comes to supporting the main pillar and front line of our democracy, namely, our local councillors.

I will finish by briefly mentioning the mental health survey carried out by our colleague, Senator Swanick. The results were frightening but they came as no news to me or anyone else in daily contact with councillors. They are entitled to be supported when it comes to matters of mental health. I compliment my colleague, Councillor Shane P. O'Reilly, and his colleagues in the AILG for recently providing a mental health training day. They did so out of their own resources but matters of mental health should really be separately resourced.