Close to 100 Oireachtas members will resign en masse from local authorities within months on foot of the ban on the dual mandate due to become law before Easter.
Although many TDs and Senators would prefer to retain their local authority seats until they will be obliged to give them up in June 2004, spokesmen for the main political parties said yesterday they will apply strong pressure on all to give up their local seats immediately the law is enacted.
This is to allow the parties select replacements to be co-opted to councils as early as possible to maximise their chances of re-election next year.
Shortly after the election of the present Government, some 86 TDs and 32 Senators held local authority seats. Some 103 are from parties which say they want them to resign from councils as soon as the legislation is passed.
Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour all said yesterday that their strategy would be to get their 2004 candidates co-opted onto local authorities at the earliest possible date. While TDs and Senators will be entitled under the new law to see out their term, these parties will apply strong pressure on them to go quickly.
The Government is considering adding a further financial inducement to Oireachtas members to give up their council seats. Already under the Local Government Act, 2001, councillors are entitled to €1,800 for each year of service from May 2000 to June 2004. This payment, amounting to €7,200, is likely to be given in full even to councillors who resign in the next few months.
A spokesman for the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, would not comment yesterday on speculation that another financial inducement would be included in the Bill abolishing the dual mandate, to be published in early February, to encourage Oireachtas members to resign from councils.
The four Sinn Féin and 10 independent dual mandate holders may opt to keep their council seats to maximise their chances of re-election to the Dáil. Some sitting deputies from other parties would also like to remain on local authorities until June 2004 to maximise their ability to do constituency work and retain their local profile.
"Some TDs will want to put it off", according to a senior Fianna Fáil source.
"But we can't have them stepping down at the eleventh hour. We want electable replacements, although we are not convinced that they all want electable replacements," he said, referring to some TDs' reluctance to boost a constituency rival who could threaten their Dáil seat.
Fianna Fáil has scheduled its first 2004 local election selection convention for January 29th in the Taoiseach's own constituency as a signal to the party organisation of how serious it is about putting strong candidates in place at an early date. "We are expecting TDs and Senators who are councillors to stand down at the earliest possible opportunity."
A Fine Gael spokesman said his party had the same view, although he stressed that no party could force councillors to resign.
He also said Fine Gael was opposed to the Government suggestion that resigning councillors would have a say in who replaced them.
"We want to pick people who will be candidates for the next general election," he said.
A Labour spokesman said the party would be encouraging its dual-mandate holders to leave councils as early as possible.