Creighton urges cut in number of councils

A GOVERNMENT junior minister has said the number of local councils should be cut drastically and described the salaries and expenses paid to councillors as “preposterous”.

Minister of State for European Affairs Lucinda Creighton made the comments in the wake of an Irish Examiner investigation which found county and city councillors were paid more than €23.5 million in 2010 in salaries and expenses.

Ms Creighton said: “It is preposterous, and that’s after a huge amount of savings. I don’t want to devalue the work they do, it’s just there are too many of them. We need less councillors and I mean significantly less, I think there should be about a third of what we currently have. If you paid them properly and gave them proper powers, I think that it would be money well spent.

“We can’t continue with the vast number of representatives we have. We are way over represented.”

At present there are 114 county, city, town and borough councils on which 1,627 councillors sit.

Ms Creighton said these numbers are too high and should be reduced.

“What I would envisage is a regional assembly over a number of counties or even a province on which there would be elected representatives at regional level with real powers,” she said. “The only power they have at the moment is to pass the budget once a year and pass the development plan every five years. After that, every decision is outside of the hands of local councillors.”

However, Fianna Fáil local government spokesperson, Niall Collins, said great care should be taken before making any changes.

“I think local councillors do a good job and I think we have to stop peeling away the layers of democracy,” he said. “The vast majority of public representatives do a good value-for- money job, any changes to the money they are paid or the amount of representatives needs to be considered in great detail.”

The total figure for 2010 is down by more than €7m on the previous year. However, more than €4.7m was paid out in 2009 in gratuity payments for retiring or defeated candidates. In January 2010, a 5% pay cut also came into effect for councillors in line with public sector reductions.

This year, county and city councillors are liable to pay PRSI for the first time, a rule that has come under scrutiny as councillors are not entitled to the same pension or sick pay as other contributors.