Local Government (Support for Elected Members) Bill 2024: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-10
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Frances Black (IND), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I welcome the Minister of State to the House.
Before I start, I welcome Councillor Joe Malone, from the Local Authority Members Association, LAMA, who is in the Gallery this evening. I thank LAMA and the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, for attending the briefing that I hosted here last week and all those who attended.
I am delighted to move the Local Government (Support for Elected Members) Bill 2024 on Second Stage in the Seanad today. I am grateful to my colleagues in the Civil Engagement Group, Senators Ruane, Flynn and Higgins, for co-sponsoring the Bill and for agreeing to use our Private Members' time for this important issue. However, I am extremely disappointed that the Government has tabled a timed amendment to the Bill. A delay of 12 months is simply not acceptable. This legislation is urgently needed for councillors to be able to perform their functions to the best of their ability.
The use of timed amendments has become a regular feature of how the Government engages with legislation in the Seanad and it is cynically undermining our parliamentary work. I have been waiting seven years for the occupied territories Bill. That Bill passed Second Stage seven or eight years ago and I am still waiting because we had a timed amendment then. Here we are still in that situation. Such amendments are designed so that the Government can delay legislation and people in Government parties will not be seen to vote against something they believe in and care about.
To be absolutely clear, I am willing to work with the Minister and the Department to work out how the Bill could best be made operational, to figure out any necessary amendments and to engage thoroughly on the content of the Bill before Committee Stage. The timed amendment is simply not necessary. The legislative process allows for the time needed to make any changes the Government deems necessary to make the Bill implementable. Delaying it is a signal of intent from the Minister that he wants to put this Bill on the long finger and Government Senators should not accept it. I understand all about the task force, but I think this will work closely with the task force. In speaking to the AILG, they agreed with me on that.
I am particularly disappointed in the Fine Gael Senators who attended the audiovisual room briefing that I hosted last week with representatives from LAMA and the AILG. After listening to what councillors had to say about the need for and importance of this Bill, they all made commitments, including a commitment to support this legislation today. They said it there in front of LAMA and the AILG. I hope they can see sense and vote against the timed amendment today because I do not see how they can support this legislation and also support delaying its progression through the House.
Having said all that, I will speak about why I have introduced this Bill and why it is so urgently necessary. I must thank Emma and Seb in my office for their work on the Bill and the many councillors who have contacted me and others here to express their strong support, and not forgetting Robbie as well. I want to say a special thanks to Senator Ruane because at the very beginning it was her idea. We are all too aware in this House of the extraordinary pressures faced by local councillors around the country. We all know that the Seanad has a particular relationship with our local councillors. Many of us work with councillors every day or have previously served as elected members of local government. The role that councillors play in their local communities is invaluable because they put a familiar face on political decision-making and democracy more generally. However, the role of the councillor in recent decades, and particularly in the 21st century, has transformed, with increasing expectations that are extreme, intense and growing. Moreover the salaries and supports given to councillors have not changed to match this extraordinary change and evolution in the role. Serving as an elected member of a local authority is no longer a part-time job, especially with the advent of social media that causes greater expectations regarding the availability of councillors to respond to constituents' queries.
Increased expectations on councillors come in the context of the massive decline of over 600 local representatives since the abolition of town councils in 2014.
The status quo is putting extraordinary pressure on all our councillors, their families, mental health and livelihoods. In this context, my Bill is a simple and straightforward proposal with a single objective: to allow local councillors to hire administrative staff to support their important work as elected officials. We all know current expectations on councillors are huge. I see it daily. It is unrealistic and it is growing.
During the Seanad's Public Consultation Committee' s 2024 hearings on the future of local democracy, it was clear that change to the level and breadth of support available to councillors is desperately needed. Our report made several recommendations related to the clear need to provide better pay conditions and wraparound supports to councillors and candidates for local election, particularly for women and those from minority backgrounds. Increased expectations on councillors have also been matched by a trend of increasing removal of powers from elected members, as demonstrated by the library and research paper that informed our hearings.
There have been many reports, studies and publications in recent years related to the need for a change to the status quo for local councillors. In the independent review of the role of remuneration of local authority elected members published by the Department of housing and local government in June 2020, Sarah Moorhead SC made it clear that there is huge demand among councillors for greater administrative support as a key measure to support their important elected functions and to retain new councillors in the longer term. Women For Election previously found that a key barrier in decision making for female candidates to run and for women councillors to remain is the absence of real administrative support for councillors juggling personal and professional responsibilities.
My Bill is offered as one part of the package of reforms that are needed to address these many structural challenges. Amazing stuff came out of the Seanad consultation committee. We learned so much. This is only one little thing. I really want this to work and I thought we would get support from everybody here today. I really thought this was a simple Bill. My Bill is offered as one part of the package of reforms.
As we all know, local councillors across the country are doing extremely hard work, representing large geographical electoral areas containing thousands of constituents, often without any administrative support at all, barring a small allowance in which secretarial support is one category of many. Councillors must contend with issues of huge technical and social complexity and a large volume of correspondence, all the while being the face of politics and democracy in their local communities. This is where this Bill comes in.
If passed, this Bill empowers the Minister for housing and local government to ensure that each member of every local authority across the country would be entitled to the same level of staffing support that we receive as Oireachtas Members. The Bill would amend the Local Government Act 2001 to extend an entitlement to the same administrative support that we receive as Oireachtas Members to each elected member of every local authority in the State. The definition of "administrative support" is taken to mean exactly as that contained in the Houses of the Oireachtas Act which governs our scheme for secretarial assistance in Leinster House. The Minister for housing and local government would be required to adopt a new scheme akin to the scheme for secretarial assistance to allow local councillors to employ support staff to assist in the performance of their elected duties.
All of us in this House know the invaluable role our Seanad office staff play in our work. We know this place would grind to a halt without them. Can you imagine the difficulties and challenges we would face without the critical support they provide? That is the everyday reality of our councillors right now. It has to change. If we vote against the timed amendment this evening, the Seanad can send an important message to all Ireland's councillors that we believe their work to be critical and that they play a vital role in Irish democracy that is worth supporting. We would be saying that they are entitled to, at a minimum, the same administrative support in terms of staffing given to all other elected public representatives in Ireland, including all of us. We all know the vital role councillors play in their local communities and in service of the public interest. They deserve and are entitled to be supported to perform their important functions with adequate pay, fair working conditions and with a level of policy advice and administrative help that recognises their elected mandates. This Bill would go some way to support councillors and has the potential to revitalise, renew and rebuild local democracy in Ireland. We should take advantage of this important opportunity and we should not delay it. I commend the Bill to the House.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-10