Council's staff bill over €26m annually

Westmeath County Council’s annual staff bill – including pensions and superannuation – comes to over €26m annually.

There are currently 441.67 whole-time equivalent staff on the council’s payroll.

The figures were given as part of a national breakdown provided by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Phil Hogan, this week.

Deputy Martin Ferris asked for a breakdown of all staffing costs, including pensions, for each local authority, and was informed that the gross cash remuneration for the country amounted to €1.354bn, with a further €307m in superannuation payments.

Westmeath’s total wages/pensions bill comes to €22,590,540, with superannuation coming to a further €3,975,525m on top of that.

The staff number, stated as whole-time equivalents, was provided in response to a question from Deputy Catherine Murphy.  However, Minister Hogan told Deputy Murphy it was not possible to give a breakdown of the figures by grade.