Galway presses for reversal of cut in allowance to Mayor
Political pressure is to be piled on the new Minister for Environment and department officials to reverse cuts to the allowance given to the Mayor of Galway.
Galway City Councillors fear that recent cuts to the allowance will preclude most elected members from taking on the role of First Citizen.
The current Environment Minister Phil Hogan angered councillors all over the country with new rules on the amount of expenses earned by representatives on local authorities.
One of the measures he introduced was to slash the Galway City mayoral allowance from €48,000 a year and to cap it at just €20,000 a year.
That €20,000 includes a taxable mayor’s ‘wage’ of €10,000 plus €10,000 for gifts and functions, which must be vouched.
There are fears locally that a mayor might even be ‘out of pocket’ due to the huge volume of work that the First Citizen is expected to do, and functions they are expected to attend.
At a Corporate Policy meeting, Galway City Councillors discussed the matter and it was agreed the department should be lobbied to reverse the cut.
The Chief Executive of Galway City Council, Brendan McGrath will take up the matter at official level, and will make the elected members’ views known to the minister and officials.
Minister Hogan is expected to be announced as Ireland’s new European Commissioner this week and City Councillors are hopeful the new minister might reverse the cuts to their expenses and mayoral allowances.
Mayor of Galway, City Councillor Donal Lyons, yesterday said that ordinary people who had to hold down full-time jobs would not want to become mayor in future due to the cut to the salary.
Read more in this week’s Connacht Sentinel