SLIGO’S COUNTY COUNCILLORS RECEIVED NEARLY €500,000 IN 2020

SLIGO County Council paid out just under €500,000 in allowances and expenses to councillors last year.

Of the overall total of €491,067.40 for 2020 (which was down slightly on €506,318 last year), the basic annual representational payment (a form of salary) of €18,378.40 (up €283 on last year) or part of that paid to each councillor accounted for €324,889 of the total.

The remainder is made up of extra payments of allowances to some councillors for posts of responsibility.

These include serving as council cathaoirleach, or vice-chair, serving as Mayor of Sligo Municipal District or as a chairperson of one of the other two municipal districts or chairing a special purposes committee. Councillors also received varying amounts of travelling and other expenses, as well as payments for training, attending conferences and phone allowances.

There are 19 councillors listed because Chris MacManus of Sinn Féin was only there for part of the year, having been co-opted as an MEP in March, and his party colleague Arthur Gibbons then took over from him and so has not obtained a full year’s allowances either.

The figures obtained by the Sligo Weekender from the council show that four councillors were each paid over €30,000, although all of those received extra allowances for holding positions such as cathaoirleach, mayor, municipal district chair or chairing special purposes committees.

The highest amount was paid to Cllr Rosaleen O’Grady of Fianna Fáil, who received €36,119.39. She served a term as mayor and chaired a committee for which she received additional allowances totalling almost €12,000.

Next highest on €35,334.03 was Fine Gael’s Dara Mulvey, the current cathaoirleach, a post which carries an allowance of €10,769. After that, on €32,048.51, was Cllr Tom MacSharry of Fianna Fail who had preceded him as cathaoirleach for the fist six months of the year, followed on €30,944.48 by his party colleague Donal Gilroy, who is vice-chair and also chaired a committee. Just under the €30,000 mark, on €29,912.84, was Cllr Gino O’Boyle of People Before Profit, who served part of the year as mayor and council vice-chair.

Also getting over €29,000 were Cllrs Sinead Maguire (FG) on €29,169.02 and Michael Clarke (Independent) €29,068.29, who had allowances for chairing a committee and being chair of a municipal district, respectively. In terms of expenses outside of the basic and other allowances, the highest total (€6,790.62) was paid to Cllr Declan Bree (Ind), while the highest amount for training (€1,095.54) went to Michael Clarke.