Minister defends ‘value-for-money’ local councillors

ENVIRONMENT Minister Dick Roche yesterday defended local councillors who spent over €4 million a year attending conferences and insisted that they were not “junkets”.

But Mr Roche insisted that there will be no place for corruption or wrongdoing in the local government service - by councillor, manager or staff.

There are 883 councillors in the country who can claim €5,000 in expenses for attending conferences away from home each year. This amounts to €4.4m in expenses on top of the average €14,500 annual salary each councillor now gets.