Local Government (Support for Elected Members) Bill 2024: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-10 ============================================================ Maria Byrne (FG), Agricultural Panel I thank the Minister of State for coming to discuss this important issue. I pay compliment to Senator Black and her colleagues for bringing this legislation forward. All of us certainly agree with the sentiments behind it. I served as a councillor for 17 years, 15 years in the city and two years on the combined city and county council before being elected here. I agree that back in those days in 1999 when I was first elected, there were very little supports for councillors. The role of female councillors has been highlighted here. When I was elected first, I was one of two female councillors out of 21. When we went into the combined council of 40 councillors, there were six females. Certainly, we have come a long way coming forward since back at the very start. I acknowledge Councillor Malone and his colleagues in LAMA and AILG. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to a local democracy task force. I was delighted, along with my colleague Senator Kyne, to contribute to that task force recently. There were options for Senators representing the Seanad to go forward, make a presentation and answer some of the questions they had. It was an informative discussion. I pay tribute to the 14 representatives that sit on that. It is chaired by Mr. Jim Breslin. Councillor Malone is part of that as well representing LAMA. I pay tribute to them and the amount of work they have done in relation to that taskforce. I fully agree with the sentiments that councillors need support. They need a lot more resources. A lot has been done. When I go back to my early days in local government, I had to provide my own laptop, printer, paper and everything. A lot of that has changed in that there is now support for councillors to get laptops and printers. They are provided by the local authority. There is money there for them for secretarial support. Working alongside councillors, there is a lot more scope for people to have to more supports. With the results of the task force and when the councillors are putting forward where they believe there are these loopholes and need to be supported, it is important that the Government, because it is in the programme for Government, supports the councillors and bring forward whatever legislation is needed sooner rather than later. Other speakers raised the issue of councillors paying the PRSI and getting nothing for it. There is no pension out of it. That is a crucial issue. Many councillors dedicate their lives in a full-time role, even though it is expected to be a part-time role, are full-time. They are the first people that members of the public go to. When they have an issue, they go there for support or to find out where they can go to for advice. The role of a councillor has expanded and has become very much full time over the past number of years especially. Speakers raised the expansion of areas. When I started off, I represented the old city ward. This was known as ward 4. I then went on to represent Limerick city south, which was two local authority areas combined. That all changed again, I lost half of the area and went out into the county. I went from being a city councillor to representing half the city and the other half in rural Limerick. There are many councillors in that situation. I support the sentiments behind what is being brought forward. Councillors need more resources and support. It needs to be looked at in terms of what the councillors bring forward as being the key areas that they see as needing supports. I am sure the Minister of State will do his best to bring forward the legislation as soon as possible. It is important that the Government reacts as soon as the task force reports. There might be one or two areas we might be able to change or support. --- 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