Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Councillors exercise their role in many functions and when a conflict arises, it is up to them to declare it. That is required of them. No one else can accuse them of it, they have to declare whether they have a conflict of interests. Many of us know many people for many reasons. When we have conflicts of interests, we declare them and absent ourselves from the Chamber. This is done in local authorities and elsewhere as well. Just because people are elected a part-time positions and paid €16,000 a year - and some level of expenses to compensate them for all of the costs involved - they are excluded. However, when their lose their seats, everything is suddenly fine. I am not saying that they should be included automatically, nor that we should stuff boards full of them. Many boards do not have this requirement but it has become a tendency in the past five or ten years to start putting this in as an automatic exclusion. It is not fair to equate people serving in €16,000-a-year part-time positions with Members of the Oireachtas. That is not a fair comparison.