Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On Sunday afternoon, while listening to the news, the plight of our local authority members came to the fore once again.I make no apology for representing their needs in this House. After all, they are our electorate and it is only right and proper that we would represent them.

Since 2014, when I first mentioned the terms and conditions of employment for county councillors in this country, they have had promise after promise of improved conditions. They have an allowance, which is now regarded as income. They are paying tax and PRSI on an allowance, which baffles me to some degree. It took a High Court action to force the Government into changing the class of PRSI that applies to local authority representatives and incidentally, I am sorry to the heart that I did not push the same High Court case the whole way to cover Members of this House in order that we would not be paying class K PRSI, for it is absolutely criminal to be taking 4% of our income off us with no benefit whatsoever to accrue to anybody in this House. That is just wrong in every sense of the word.

We are finding ourselves that some 20% of our local authority members will not run for re-election. We are losing young, innovative and highly motivated people, purely because of the amount of work that is involved in the job and their inability to see themselves properly rewarded for the amount of time and effort they put into their jobs. It is absolutely disgraceful that we are coming into the next election and they do not have their terms and conditions properly set out so that they know what they are signing up for. We are seeing a lot of senior county councillors, people who have served this country for ten, 20 or 30 years, who are walking away as well. I know I am not alone in this House when I represent their views. I know every Member that is elected by members of local authorities feels the same way. It is just wrong.

On a second issue, I see that we are now deferring the local property tax for another year. This is the most cynical move I have ever seen.