COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, February 11, 2013

QUESTION NO. 11

QUESTION: Councillor J. Lahart

To ask the Manager if she has given any consideration to the cost of an additional fourteen councillors, as proposed under Government legislation, in terms of administration and accommodation and so on?

REPLY:

Based on the 2011 financial year (audited AFS) the cost to the Council in relation to the expenses of the current 26 Members of the Council were as follows:

Representational Payment	Monthly Allowance	Conferences	Other (mobile phones, broadband etc)	SPC’s
€428,500	€165,500	€21,000	€27,000	€36,000

This comes to a total of €678,000.  In addition to above, the allowances for the Mayor and Deputy Mayor Allowance must be added in the amount of €61,000.

As Members are aware the Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee has been formed and tasked with making recommendations to the Minister on the matters referred to in the question. While it would be premature to speculate on the outcome of the Boundary Committee's deliberations, it is clear that the Boundary Committee's recommendations have the potential to give rise to additional costs in the administration of meetings including meetings of the proposed Municipal Councils.  Based on these figures and extrapolating for the maximum number of Members based on the terms of reference of the Boundary Committee it is likely that an overall total of over €1m would be reached.

In addition to the above consideration would have to be given to the need for additional staff resources to be assigned.  Any additional allocation of staff would have to be examined in terms of scale and impact on services.

The option for accommodation for Members will be examined with a view to keeping costs as low as possible and exploring re-arrangement prior to identifying any building works.