I move for leave to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend sub-section (2) of Section 63 of the Local Government Act, 1925 (No. 5 of 1925).
This is a very brief Bill and I move it in the absence of my colleague, Deputy P. Boland. The purpose of the Bill is to get a change made in the Local Government Act of 1925 whereby members of county councils who attend at least 50 per cent. of the ordinary meetings of each county council or board of health would be paid expenses instead of, as at present, payment being made only if there is a minimum attendance of 75 per cent. at such meetings.
In some counties there are very long distances which members have to travel from their homes to the place of meeting. Sometimes in the year it is not possible for members without very great sacrifice to attend a sufficient number of meetings to enable them to qualify for payment of their travelling expenses. I would like, and I am sure everybody here would like, that as far as possible, except where sickness intervenes, members of county councils, boards of health and other such important bodies should attend if possible every meeting. But that is aiming at an ideal, and while we have to aim at what is an ideal, we have to face facts as they are. We realise that even this Assembly, which, I suppose, looks upon itself as a much more important body than county councils or boards of health, does not get a 75 per cent. attendance all the year round at its meetings. Sickness and other things of that kind over which the individual has no control arise to prevent members attending to their duties regularly on these public boards. Once the principle of payment for attendance at meetings, that is to say, payment of travelling expenses, is admitted, I think it is only fair that 50 per cent. should be taken as the minimum instead of 75 per cent. as heretofore. That should be admitted when one takes into account the obstacles that are in the way of many members of such bodies giving a full attendance. I do not know what the attendance in Mayo would be, or what the attendance in Cork would be. Both are large counties. I do not know what their attendance would be compared with the attendance at meetings in places like Louth. I have not any figures, but I imagine it is much more difficult to get a good attendance in places like Cork or Mayo than in places like Louth or County Dublin. Certainly it is very easy to get to a meeting in the County Dublin. They have there a variety of conveyances. That is not the case in other parts of the country. This matter has been brought to the notice of members of our Party by members of the Party who are also members of the county councils and boards of health and by colleagues of theirs who complain that while they may have been attending almost 75 per cent. of the meetings of the local bodies, they might be 1 per cent. or 2 per cent., perhaps, under the figure fixed by the Act of 1925. Therefore, according to the law as it now stands, they would not be permitted to put in a claim for their travelling expenses. For my part, I would go further and allow sufficient to members on public boards where it would be convenient to do so to give them a meal.
