Local Government (Support for Elected Members) Bill 2024: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-10 ============================================================ Eileen Flynn (IND), Administrative Panel No, they were not. A county councillor told me that today out of his own mouth. There is Senator Kyne over there and me here. If I did not have the support of my parliamentary assistant, PA, I would not be able to come in here to deliver a speech. None of us would be. We could deliver our speeches, but we need PAs to do the graft work. Why should Senators and TDs have them when county councillors do not? The majority of people in this House are voted in by county councillors, including the Senator who said that their pay was restored. It was not restored. It is not reflected in the work our county councillors do. As Senator Black rightly said, why are we putting this on the long finger? Why are we kicking the can down the road. These councillors need the support. We see the rise of hatred, discrimination, racism and a lot of antisocial behaviour in many communities. It is not the fault of the majority of people in these communities, it is a few bad apples. The county councillors step in to help. They create job opportunities for some young people in rural Ireland. This Bill would enable county councillors who are mothers to have a bit of a work-life balance. It is really important. As Senator Black said, kicking the can down the road is not acceptable. The Senators in this House cannot go to the audiovisual room and say that they support the county councillors and then support the Government's proposal to kick the Bill down the road for another 12 months. In those 12 months, we could work with county councillors and have administrative workers in place for them. From the bottom of my heart, it is not just about county councillors. This is about communities. It is also about good pay. It is about the equality of opportunity that I speak about all the time in this House. My friends always asked me, before I became a Senator, whether I would run for local office. I said “No way”, because it is the hardest job to do while living and working in the same community. Many years ago, before I was ever a Senator, one person said to me that it is a tough job because even on days when a councillor is burying a loved one or on Christmas or New Year’s Day, he or she does not have any time off. I worked with the Minister of State in the previous Seanad and I know his heart is in the right place. He wants better for our local county councillors. We look forward to liaising with him to bring this legislation to reality. For the Civil Engagement Group, in one sense, it is still a win for us to have the Bill paused. The Seanad does business differently this term than it did in the previous term. If the Government does not have the guts to vote against many Bills, or be honest about what it wants to say about them, they are kicked down the road with the support of Government parties’ Senators. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. 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