EDUCATION FUNDING to two members of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has been described as a “scandal” by one of their fellow councillors, but was yesterday defended by the local authority and the councillors themselves.
Last year two Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown county councillors, Barry Ward and Cormac Devlin, received €10,085 and €2,780 respectively towards third-level education courses.
Yesterday councillor Melisa Halpin of People Before Profit said it was a scandal that the councillors were receiving this funding to “further their own personal careers” when the council could not afford some basic services.
“This has to stop,” she said, adding that she and colleague councillor Hugh Lewis consistently opposed payment of expenses for conferences and training and did not collect their €4,700 annual entitlement.
“We propose reducing expenses to €1,000 per councillor,” she said. “Any unspent money by individual councillors should be used to maintain services in the county and all education bursaries funded by the council should be open to all residents in the council area.”
However, speaking to The Irish Timesyesterday, Mr Devlin, who received €2,780 last year towards a BA in public management at the Institute of Public Administration, said the expenses were legitimately paid under the education and training budget of the council.
The course “is relevant to my public role” and pertinent in that it allowed me to “represent the people to the best of my ability”.
Mr Ward said the council had paid for one half of a masters in economic policy studies at Trinity College, which he defended as “entirely, as far as I am concerned, to help me in my role as a councillor”.
While he had supported the idea that a €131,000 budget towards councillors’ expenses, training and education should be reduced it was also “important for councillors to gain expertise which will be of benefit to the taxpayer”.
County manager Owen Keegan said future individual applications for education and training “would be brought to the wider body of elected members for approval” .
He approved the funding on the basis that it involved no additional council expenditure and represented investment in relevant structured education and training, his spokeswoman said. It offered added value to the alternative of one-off conferences, she said.