FF anger as local authority payment dropped

Fianna Fail backbenchers are in revolt over the prospect of not being given the £10,000 payment proposed for members of local…

Fianna Fail backbenchers are in revolt over the prospect of not being given the £10,000 payment proposed for members of local authorities.

At a special meeting last night, members of the parliamentary party were told they could make representations to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, when he returned from illness. However, it has been learned that the Cabinet has already approved the plan to drop the proposed payment at the insistence of the Progressive Democrats.

The payment was part of Mr Dempsey's planned reform of local government, to be paid to county councillors once TDs and senators had been banned from local authority seats. However, his plans to abolish the dual mandate were scrapped last week, following the threat by four Independent TDs to end support for the Government.

A Government spokesman confirmed that a decision was taken at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday "to allow Mr Dempsey to go ahead and make regulations in relation to the issue which would provide that Oireachtas members also serving on local authorities would only get one salary".

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A spokesman for the Progressive Democrats said last night the payment of the money to Oireachtas members was something "that we cannot agree to". Party sources said they had agreed against their wishes to the retention of the dual mandate last week and this payment would be "a bridge too far".

The issue caused anger at the weekly Fianna Fail parliamentary party meeting yesterday and Mr Dempsey was sharply criticised. "There was uproar at the meeting," said one TD. "I never saw anything like it. People were insisting to the party whip and chairman that we take the same course as we did last week [when it was decided to drop plans to abolish the dual mandate] and that they go to the Minister and tell him this should not go forward. He was savaged and a lot of members want him to go."

Another said that people wondered if the Minister was "being spiteful and trying to punish them because of his humiliating climbdown". However another TD said those who had voiced criticisms were "regular badger-baiters in relation to Noel Dempsey". He said party chairman Dr Rory O'Hanlon had warned deputies that their loyalties lay with Mr Dempsey.

"The point people were making was whether or not the Minister was being vindictive. Do they want TDs and senators to sit down in local authorities with people who have three different jobs?"

Kilkenny Senator Mick Lanigan said he asked if there had been a Cabinet decision on the matter or if it was simply a "flyer". "I wasn't taking any side. I am not a member of a local authority."

Asked whether Oireachtas members should be paid, he said: "I think if someone is a member of a local authority they should be paid. There shouldn't be any difference between them and a member of the Oireachtas. There are members of local authorities who are millionaires and some are unemployed, but nobody asks them how much they earn."

A second meeting was demanded and last night the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, stood in for Mr Dempsey. "He told us that the Minister could not be there himself and that the whole question of salaries would be brought in by regulation. He was adamant there was no agreement in Government on this," said a TD.