Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I came in here with some degree of hope. I am going out more depressed than I came in. We are creating a dangerous precedent. The public service has always been based on the fact that when staff come to retire, they get a lump sum based on current salary. I am mindful of my career, where I started work as a private soldier and will finish on the single pension scheme as a teacher. At the end of the day, my entitlement to a pension will not be directly differentiated from that of any other member of the public service. Provided I was three years in the job, I will get the lump sum and pension of a teacher.

When we allow chinks like this to take place, whereby a representational payment can be based on €18,000, it is a dangerous precedent and one that could find its way filtering through to other sectors of the public service. We have to remember that it is not just county councillors who do not make a contribution to their pension. Many roles make no contribution; it is part and parcel of their salary.

We have to sit down and look at this. Sadly, in the case of PRSI, along with five county councillors, I had to take a court case to get the PRSI class K removed from county councillors and get them moved to class F. We were not generous enough to make that retrospective. This is an important issue.

From the point of view of our local authority members, I do not know why anybody would go into the role anymore. We are stripping powers from them and will not treat them in the same way as other public servants when it comes to their representational payment. I appreciate this is not the doing of the Minister of State, but he has it within his remit to make moves to try to fix this and treat these people in a decent way.

I am happy to see that there is no differentiation between town and county councillors. I assume all councillors will retire on the same level of representational payment.