Local Government (Support for Elected Members) Bill 2024: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-10 ============================================================ Garret Ahearn (FG), Administrative Panel -----of €14,000. I suggest the Senator talks to Councillor Malone who was invited here tonight. He will confirm it because LAMA played a key role in increasing that. When we talk about actually wanting to do things to support councillors we need to recognise that over the past five or six years from previous Ministers, the Minister, Deputy Burke, and the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins at the moment, there has been more changes in support for councillors than ever before. That is not recognised by Senator Flynn's side. We who were councillors and proud to be councillors, know the work involved in being a councillor and are not surprised by it because we did it ourselves, know that more needs to be done. We have done an awful lot but more needs to be done. Just to put on the record what we have actually done, because the Opposition does not want to recognise it, we have introduced maternity leave. Senator Black was talking about how we need to support women but failed to mention we have introduced maternity leave and the opportunity for co-option to positions temporarily while councillors are on maternity leave. No one mentioned anything about the hybrid meetings that are now possible for people who cannot attend a meeting in person but still want to be there but because of other work, family or private commitments cannot be there. Hybrid meetings are now available. They did not talk about the current remuneration and allowances. They did not talk about how the work for councillors now is so difficult in a modern society where there are challenges in terms of security and the abuse they get. There was no mention of the Minister of State, Deputy Cummin's, increase in security allowances to €10,000 they can claim, because we recognise that nowadays for councillors it can be very challenging. There was no mention of allowances, gratuity payments, payments for service after 20 years where councillors now receive €94,000 if they do a full term of service. An awful lot has been done by this Government and the previous Government, particularly by the Minister, Deputy Peter Burke, and the Minister of State, Deputy John Cummins, has followed up on it. That does not mean that what Senator Black is talking about is wrong. It is right that we discuss it. It is right we do more to support councillors and the amendment was tabled to see what can be done from the Government's perspective to support councillors. We in the Government side will work with LAMA and AILG, and with anyone who realistically wants to make changes to support councillors, to encourage more people to get into local government and to encourage women, in particular, to be able to get into it. Let us have a realistic conversation rather than just saying that nothing is being done, there has been no increase for councillors and that nothing has been done on this side. Never in the history of the State has more been done than in the past five years to support councillors but we certainly need to do more. I will work with my colleagues and with Members in opposition to make sure that is done. We hear on a daily basis the challenges faced by councillors representing their communities and defending decisions we make here that they have to deal with on the ground. We will do everything we can to support them. It is a huge honour for all councillors to be elected. It was the greatest honour I ever had to be elected by my community and to be elected mayor of Clonmel. We recognise that and Senator Fitzpatrick recognises that because it is such a proud thing, to be elected by one's own community to represent one's own community. When people stand up in this Chamber talking about how they are representing councillors and speaking on behalf of councillors, they should learn the facts. They should recognise what has been done. If they do that we will work with them, but we will work with LAMA and AILG to make sure we can do more as well. --- 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