Local authorities will begin paying councillors next month following Dβil approval for the necessary funding.
Councillors and Town Commissioners will also receive lump sums of up to €19,000 (£15,000 approximately) representing payments backdated to May 2000, the date of the publication of the Local Government Bill. The introduction of the payments represents a success for the Minister for the Environment Mr Noel Dempsey, who has unsuccessfully championed a number of other local authority reform proposals.
Mr Dempsey confirmed yesterday that under the scheme County and City Councillors will receive €11,000 a year, members of Borough Corporations and Athlone, Bray, Dundalk, Ennis and Tralee UDCs will get €5,500, all other UDCs and Balbriggan, Droichead Nua, Greystones, Leixlip, Mullingar, Portlaoise and Shannon Town Commissioners will get €2,750, with remaining Town Commissioners receiving €1,500 per year.
However the 113 TDs and Senators who are also local authority members will not receive the money. Their exclusion was opposed angrily earlier this year by many Fianna Fβil backbenchers, but was pressed by the Progressive Democrats and agreed by the Government last June.
At the time some deputies and senators said they felt Mr Dempsey was being "spiteful" and trying to punish them because they had forced him to drop his other key reform proposal: the abolition of the dual mandate whereby Oireachtas members can also sit on local authorities. Mr Dempsey insisted:
"The theory behind this is that a person gets paid once for being a public representative." Announcing the introduction of the payments yesterday, Mr Dempsey said the new representational payment "is meant to be a recognition of the work that councillors volunteer to undertake when they stand for election and subsequently serve their community. It is not meant to be a salary."