‘Oh, councillors will get their 50pc pay hike all right’
A rise in salary for councillors while student nurses remain unpaid is the Coalition’s next political headache, writes
ATD on a €100,000 a year cannot afford to buy a modest three-bedroomed home in many parts of Dublin, the Fine Gael parliamentary party was told last week.
The remarks by veteran backbencher Bernard Durkan raised eyebrows among Fine Gael TDs and Senators, who had been discussing a motion calling for the implementation of a long-awaited €8,000 pay increase for city and county councillors.
Increasing councillors’ core salary by nearly 50pc is likely to become the next political pay headache for the Coalition in the coming weeks. The public might well ask: Why can we pay councillors more, but not student nurses during a pandemic?
Acutely aware of the backlash over their own pay arrangements, Coalition ministers are waiving increases due to all TDs as part of the unwinding of emergency public sector pay cuts put in place a decade ago.
But Mr Durkan argued that if TDs took pay cuts 10 years ago then they are entitled to have them restored, as every other public sector worker has in recent years. “There is a limit to what you can do to ingratiate yourself with the general public,” the outspoken Kildare North TD is reported to have said at the meeting.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar also pointed out to colleagues at the meeting that he has been handing back salary increases due to ministers for the last 10 years, but has never got credit for this. Not that he expected any, the Tánaiste reportedly added, saying politicians had to lead by example.
The motion on councillors’ pay, tabled by Senators Seán Kyne and Garret Ahearn, was primarily aimed at putting pressure on Fianna Fáil’s Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath to implement a proposal submitted to him last November by Local Government Minister Peter Burke.
Mr Burke wants to increase core pay for the State’s 947 city and county councillors from around €17,600 a year to €25,788 — linking it to public sector pay scale — while abolishing all unvouched expenses which on average amount to a tax-free allowance of €2,413 per year for a councillor. His proposal is based on the findings of a report by barrister Sarah Moorhead which examined the demanding role of a modern-day councillor.
“Reforming the way we pay our councillors has been a priority of mine since I was appointed in this role, and after significant engagement and work on this, I put forward proposals to Government for consideration at the end of last year,” Mr Burke said.
“In 2014, the number of councillors in the State was reduced from 1,627 to 949, and with this brought an increased workload for the members of our local authorities as well as an increase in the size of their constituencies.” Politicians in all parties agree councillors should be better remunerated.
But Mr McGrath is facing accusations from Fine Gael that he is “sitting” on the plan for fear of a public and media backlash — something the minister’s allies reject.
Senator Barry Ward told the Fine Gael meeting on Wednesday that the party needed to “lay down a marker” and that Mr McGrath was “afraid” to make a decision on the issue because of criticism that might come his way.
Senator Jerry Buttimer brought up Robert Watt and questioned why rules could be changed for a top civil service position, but councillors could not get what’s been recommended for them.
Mr Watt is the interim secretary general at the Department of Health whose appointment has caused controversy because of a proposal from Mr McGrath to increase the permanent salary for that position, which is currently the subject of a recruitment process, by €81,000.
That matter is now being investigated by the Oireachtas Finance Committee with Mr McGrath, the three Coalition leaders and Mr Watt himself set to be called as witnesses.
Mr Buttimer told the Sunday Independent this weekend: “There is a hysteria being driven in the media about pay and conditions of councillors.
“It’s no longer turn up for a meeting on Monday and that’s it. We should pay politicians at all levels properly to avoid the planning and development controversies of the past, the job has become more onerous. I do not want to see a situation where we go back to the bygone days of the wink, nod and the brown envelope. We can’t allow quality people to leave politics.”
Several other senators at the Fine Gael meeting spoke strongly in favour of increasing councillors’ pay — including Martin Conway, who noted their “savage” workload.
Mr Kyne told colleagues that the pay increase had been flagged so many times that councillors were sick of reading about it but not getting it.
Some in Fine Gael are critical of John Paul Phelan, Mr Burke’s predecessor as local government minister, for not having introduced the pay increase before the end of the last government.
But Mr Phelan found progress on the issue stymied by the reluctance of Mr Varadkar and Paschal Donohoe, Mr McGrath’s predecessor in DPER, to push ahead with a politically unpopular move.
“Can you imagine the headlines with a 50pc pay increase for councillors,” a source said.
Of course, the strong support of many senators for local authority pay increases is no surprise given that councillors make up most of their electorate.
Mr Varadkar told the Fine Gael meeting on Wednesday that he believed the Coalition should get it done by June, in line with the programme for government commitment to enact Ms Moorhead’s recommendations within a year of taking office.
The indications from several government sources this weekend is that the pay increase is likely to be sanctioned by Cabinet before the end of the month.
Mr McGrath’s allies insist he is not delaying the issue, merely awaiting Cabinet backing for a memo from the Department of Housing and Local Government before he signs off on the regulations giving effect to the pay increase.
“It’s not being blocked by the Department of Public Expenditure, it’ll be resolved one way or the other in the next two or three weeks,” said a source close to the minister.
“Oh, they’ll get their money all right.”
‘I don’t want to see us go back to the days of the brown envelope’