Councillors have been banned from claiming expenses for attending conferences organised by political parties, under new rules issued by Minister for the Environment Dick Roche.
The measure follows controversy after Fine Gael councillors were last month forced to drop plans to claim State expenses for attending a party conference in Athlone.
The ministerial directive, issued under powers offered by the Local Government Act, was sent to county managers in the last two day, The Irish Times understands.
Last month, Mr Roche said it was "outrageous" that Fine Gael councillors would have expected the taxpayer to pay for their attendance at the party's Hodson Bay Hotel conference between September 22nd and 24th.
The Minister has also tried to curb poor behaviour on the part of some councillors who are known to sign the attendance records at conferences and then disappear.
In addition, he has told local authorities to inspect more closely the types of conference that councillors attend, amid suspicions that many of those chosen have little or nothing to do with local authority business.
Meanwhile, the Department of the Environment has rejected a demand by the Local Authority Members Association for a €7,000 annual pension for former councillors.
"We have told them that this will not happen. We did not know about it until we learned that a Lama sub-committee had come up with the idea, but we were not long in knocking it," said a department spokesman yesterday.
Lama members will debate the pension proposal next month when they attend the association's conference in Letterkenny, Co Donegal. Members will be able to claim State expenses for attending, at €1.28 per mile.
Defending the proposal on Tuesday, Cllr Jarlath McDonagh said councillors were entitled to a pension because they were the "foot soldiers working on the ground seven days a week, who are busier than senators".
Currently, local authority members get an annual salary of about €15,000, and a gratuity worth €2,500 introduced two years ago once they quit, or lose their seats.
Ironically, Lama secured the gratuity in negotiations with the former minister for the environment, Noel Dempsey, but only after it had ruled out an earlier pensions proposal from the general council of county councils.
