All payments, including salaries, remunerations, and expenses, made to councillors by City Hall will be made public at the end of the year on the Galway City Council’s website, www.galwaycity.ie
However details of payments made to councillors by other bodies to which councillors are appointed as representatives of the city council will not be included, as this has been deemed “not practical”. Nonetheless the names of the bodies to which individuals are nominated will be included on the website.
The move to get councillors pay and expenses made public was led by Independent councillor Terry O’Flaherty.
She said all expenses paid to councillors, including expenses from mayoral allowances, committees, and boards should be displayed on www.galwaycity.ie on a three monthly basis in the “interest of transparency and accountability”.
She made her call at a recent city council meeting where it received unanimous support. The proposal was then sent to the council’s procedures committee which recommended that the expenses be made public “at the end of each financial year”.
This revised proposal was agreed by councillors and it has been welcomed by Cllr O’Flaherty.
“This is a much better and more transparent system than has existed heretofore by being up front and letting the taxpayer know that we are not hiding anything from them,” she said. “It will also put an end to the very costly and time-consuming exercise of council staff having to deal with Freedom of Information requests seeking information regarding money paid to councillors on an-going basis.”
She also feels that full openness and transparency in relation to all expenses claims by public representatives and some State bodies will “go a long way towards” eliminating the “widespread abuses of the system which have being revealed in recent times”.
