Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to complement Senator Kyne on what he has just said. He is a typical rural politician, he understands what is going on in his local area and as a fellow Galwegian, I congratulate him for bringing that forward. We need to support local industry.

Speaking of supports, there is an issue I often discuss in this House, which some Members think is purely political but it is not. It comes from my trade union background. That issue is the way we treat our local representatives and our county councillors, in particular.Since the pandemic has struck, many local representatives have found their small businesses closed and unable to trade. When it comes to welfare payments and the like, their representational allowance is taken into account. The time has come for us to face up to the issue of this representational allowance. Although we talk about county councillors' pay, they are not paid in the true sense of the word. There is no master-servant relationship. They cannot be fired; they are elected. The miserable moneys they get are to carry out the duties we ask them to do.

In 2015 when I spoke to a councillors’ convention in Inchydoney Island, I was told that all of that is dealt with in the corridors and is not talked about publicly and that in any event, it was all going to be fixed straight away. The document was on the Minister’s desk in 2015, it has not been signed yet and will not be signed.

More importantly, and this does not just refer to councillors because we hear of young barristers in the Law Library also being refused payments. It is just wrong in every sense of the word. The money that is given to these county councillors is to assist them to do the job they are elected to do. It is not a salary and if it is we should be ashamed of it. The bottom line is that we need to look at the welfare of these councillors.

I could bring Members to councillors, the Deputy Leader could do so herself, who drive hundreds of miles every month assisting families, filling out forms and working through various parts of the bureaucracy of this country and all they have to fund that is their representational allowance. We have allowances here which are not regarded as part of our salary but are there to support us in the work that we do. I am not one bit ashamed of supporting the needs for county councillors to have money to do the job they are elected to do. If we want to pay them a salary, let us pay them a proper salary and stop all of the nonsense. I was deeply distressed last night at the number of county councillors who contacted me about the dire straits in which they are living. If other people are entitled to welfare because their businesses are closed, so too are local representatives.