Councillors claim €500k in expenses
Westmeath's current crop of county councillors received almost â¬500,000 in payments last year according to their annual expenses reports, which were published this week on the council's website.The final figure of â¬488,350.23 is skewed somewhat as it includes the payments made to the six representatives (Councillors John Shaw, Gabrielle McFadden, Colm Arthur, Denis Leonard, Peter Burke, Aidan Davitt) that were elected to the council in last June's local elections, but not those made in the first half of the year to the six outgoing representatives that they replaced. Each representative's total payments is made up of representational earnings, allowances for membership of various committees and expenses claimed for mobile phones and attending conferences.The biggest earner last year was Councillor Fintan Cooney, who received over â¬35,000. This included his representational payment of â¬17,543, which is paid to each representative and a chairman's allowance of â¬13,280. The Mullingar West representative also received â¬2,795.64 for chairing a Special Policy Committee (SPC) and an allowance of â¬3,137.47 for his membership of the County Development Board.Labour's Detty Cornally was the next top earner pocketing over â¬33,000 in 2009. This included a vice-chair allowance of â¬2,503.36 and a Mullingar Town Council allowance of â¬1,770.72. Cllr Cornally also received a SPC chair allowance of â¬5,979.22.Councillors Joe Whelan (â¬31,647), Paddy Hill (â¬26,432.78) and Dan McCarthy (â¬25,195.85) were also amongst the top five highest earners. In total, the 23 county councillor's that served during the second half of last year claimed â¬39,434 in âtravel and subsistence allowancesâ for attending conferences.Cllr Robert Troy (â¬3774.63) was the biggest claimant followed by Councillor Joe Flanagan (â¬3378.41), Paddy Hill (â¬3086.85) and Ken Glynn (â¬3005.21). Unsurprisingly, the six newly elected councillors earned less than their counterparts with their members allowance (â¬2,985.71) and representational payment (â¬9,5423.75) only covering the second half of last year. Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner last year's top earner Cllr Fintan Cooney defended the payments made to him and fellow councillors saying, âwhat price do you put on local government?ââI think that local government is extremley important and has the potential to do a lot more if the reforms that we want were brought through. From my own perspective, the job of cathaoirleach is almost a full time job. While many of the duties may be ceremonial it's very time consuming and there are a lot of meetings and functions to go to.â Cllr Cooney also noted that âthe ordinary elected members will tell you that the workload of councillors has increased significantly in the last 10 or 15 years.âCllr Fintan Cooney â¬35,306.95Cllr Detty Cornally â¬33,371.46Cllr Joe Whelan ⬠31,647.70Cllr Paddy Hill â¬26,432.78Cllr Dan McCarthy â¬25,195.85Cllr Tom Allen â¬24,553.10Cllr Kevin Moran â¬23,959.99Cllr Frank McDermott â¬22,260.90Cllr Johnny Penrose â¬21,982.84Cllr Ken Glynn â¬21,622.75Cllr Michael Dollard â¬19,701.82Cllr Robert Troy â¬19,759.53Cllr Joe Flanagan â¬19,589.37Cllr Frankie Keena â¬19,156.85Cllr Paul Daly â¬18,221.43Cllr Gerard Corcoran â¬16,997.76Cllr Mark Cooney â¬16,443.46Cllr Colm Arthur â¬13,231.00Cllr Denis Leonard â¬11,831.41Cllr Peter Burke â¬11,195.27Cllr Aidan Davitt â¬11,130.99Cllr John Shaw â¬9,997.41Cllr Gabrielle McFadden â¬9,563.76