City Hall, Kilkenny
Dear Editor,
I note with dismay the tenor and timing of Kilkenny County Council’s recent decision to increase Kilkenny’s mayoral allowance from €10,000 to €12,000; a raise of 20%. I find myself agreeing with the sentiments expressed by Councillor Eugene McGuinness to the effect that the increase is unwarranted and inappropriate.
The primary argument in favour of the increase seems to be that it costs money to be the mayor, and that functions have to be paid for out of the mayor’s own pocket.
Councillors in favour of the hike like Mary-Hilda Cavanagh, John Coonan, and Andrew McGuinness plead that the existing €10,000 allowance is insufficient to cover this, but do not seem to take any account of the €31,307.36 they are all also paid as an annual salary on top of whatever wage they earn in the regular jobs I believe most of them have.
It is also suspicious that the existing allowance was miraculously sufficient before last month’s local elections, only to become insufficient after them. In all the voluminous rubbish that the councillors put through my door in the weeks and months leading up to polling day, not one of them advised me that they hoped to increase this allowance for themselves.
It strikes me as extremely sharp practice for them to plamás me for my vote at my door with promises of making Kilkenny safer, and improving local housing and amenities, only for them to move to feather their own nests in this way 6 weeks after they are elected to a five- year term. My suspicion is that they were afraid of the reaction they would have gotten if they had been forthright with their intentions. It is a reasonable fear.
We are all aware of the cost of living crisis, and the vast majority of us are forced to respond to it by cutting our cloth to fit our measure. Private sector wages are stagnant, and various taxes change incrementally in one direction or the other every 12 months, though not in a way that positively or noticeably impacts take-home pay. It is certainly not in the gift of most of us to award ourselves a 20% pay increase, and it is wrong for the councillors to do so for the five of them that will be mayor.
This new council has gotten off to a very bad start. Plus ça change.
Regards,
Killian Foley-Walsh
Kilkenny City
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