Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if, following the decision to end the arrangements whereby Ministers and Ministers of State receive severance payments on stepping down from office, he will consider extending this arrangements to cover local authority members who are elected to either House of the Oireachtas [55656/12]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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Severance payments, of a type provided for in the ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Act 1938 (as amended), are not paid to any person who ceases to be an elected member of a local authority.

Section 142 of the Local Government Act 2001 and Local Authority Members (Gratuity) Regulations 2002 (S.I. No. 281 of 2002) (as amended) provide for the payment of a once-off gratuity subject to certain conditions in the event of retirement (whether voluntarily or due to not being successful in an election), death or ill-health, and there is no separate provision for councillors who cease to be members of local authorities by virtue of election to the Oireachtas.

The recently published Action Programme for Effective Local Government – Putting People First provides that the structures for, and levels of, all payments (including gratuities) will be reviewed, to reduce overall costs and levels of payments to individual councillors, while having regard to the reformed sub-county structure and regional governance, and the need to ensure sufficient incentive for high-quality representation of the community.