Why did Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Co Co pay €10k last year for Clr Barry Ward's Masters?

[RainyDay]

Why should repeat fees be paid by the taxpayer?

They shouldn't. Funnily enough, the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown policy for staff support for staff members explicitly rules out repeat fees. But no such restrictions for the hard-pressed Councillors it seems.

Would you not wonder how much benefit the course was to the taxpayer?

In relation to Cormac Devlin, I think you could make a decent argument that his course was directly relevant to his role. The argument for relevance of Barry Ward's Masters degree in Economic Policy to his role as a Councillor is very, very weak.

[Shane.hogan]

I've been doing a bit of digging into this issue over recent months. I submitted an FOI request to get the Councillor's conference reports and their expense forms. I have hard copies of the expense forms, but I haven't got round to scanning them yet. I got soft copies of the councillor's conference reports. I can post links, but if you search on scribd.com for "Councillors conference reports for training, seminars, conferences for 2011" you should find them. There is also a list of the expense forms released to me, which is a handy list of the training/conferences/seminars attended by DLR councillors in 2011.

I have to say that I have grave concerns about the relevance of some of these courses to the role of local authority Councillors.

Happy reading folks.

[jayblue]

The bigger question here, is what do many of our public sector, local government and quango employees still benefit from further education paid for by their employers. Once the current croke park deal is finished all benefits and perks need to be dealt with as, the majority os us in the private sector have to pay ourselves for further education.

[Will Yam]

I've been doing a bit of digging into this issue over recent months. I submitted an FOI request to get the Councillor's conference reports and their expense forms. I have hard copies of the expense forms, but I haven't got round to scanning them yet. I got soft copies of the councillor's conference reports. I can post links, but if you search on scribd.com for "Councillors conference reports for training, seminars, conferences for 2011" you should find them. There is also a list of the expense forms released to me, which is a handy list of the training/conferences/seminars attended by DLR councillors in 2011.

I have to say that I have grave concerns about the relevance of some of these courses to the role of local authority Councillors.

Happy reading folks.

Well done Shane. Having nothing better to do on a wet Easter Monday I amused myself by trawling through these. I may have one or two details wrong but the thrust of whats happening is:

During 2011 59 conferences were attended by DLRCC Councillors (thats more than one a week, every week of the year).

I define a conference attended as one councillor attending. (If two councillors attend the same conferences, that counts as two conferences).

As these are Dublin based councillors, and most events in this country take place in Dublin, I would have expected a high proportion of the conferences to be in dublin. Not so. 4 of the 59 were in Dublin.

Co Galway had 15 (over 25%) of all conferences attended, followed by Cork and Wexford with 7 each (another 25% combined). Clare and Kerry had 4 each.

The most prolific conference attender is Gearoid O'Keefe, with 9 conferences to his credit (almost one every month). All of them were in either Cork (Roscarberry a particular favourite), Kerry or Clare.

The next best attender is Pat Hand, with 8 to his credit. Westport seems to be the favourite destination.

These are followed by Neil Saul (6), Tony Fox and Maria Bailey with 5 each.

Some interesting topics - Microsoft & Revenue Online - O'Keefe would have driven past Microsoft office in Sandyford on his way to Roscarberry to this course.

Optimising Tax Allowances was another one. The councillor attending this reports that it was very useful for advising his constitutents. I'm glad I'm paying my €100 to set up a councillor in competition to me.

[Will Yam]

It would be a most interesting excercise to look at conferences attended by Galway councillors. Would they have they have the same predeliction for attending conferences in Galway as their Dublin colleagues.

To quote Gogarty (was it?) - would they f**k.

[greenjerseyman]

Austerity seems to be for us and not for them. My guess is that this crisis will correct the imbalance.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, things are really correcting themselves. Thank god politicians and top civil servants dont get huge salaries anymore, all their outrageous expenses are vouched and taxed, and they are 100% accountable!
The crisis will only make it worse for the ruled not the rulers!

[greenjerseyman]

As a Fine Gael member I am apalled by this revelation if it is true.

I believe that Mr Ward should resign his seat and resign from Fine Gael if it is true. If it is false he deserves an apology and acknowledgement that he was wronged.

I expect the matter to be investigated and given due process

This cannot be let go without investigation to determine if it is true or not

What do other FG members think?

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a resignation

[RainyDay]

Well done Shane. Having nothing better to do on a wet Easter Monday I amused myself by trawling through these. I may have one or two details wrong but the thrust of whats happening is:

During 2011 59 conferences were attended by DLRCC Councillors (thats more than one a week, every week of the year).

I define a conference attended as one councillor attending. (If two councillors attend the same conferences, that counts as two conferences).

As these are Dublin based councillors, and most events in this country take place in Dublin, I would have expected a high proportion of the conferences to be in dublin. Not so. 4 of the 59 were in Dublin.

Co Galway had 15 (over 25%) of all conferences attended, followed by Cork and Wexford with 7 each (another 25% combined). Clare and Kerry had 4 each.

The most prolific conference attender is Gearoid O'Keefe, with 9 conferences to his credit (almost one every month). All of them were in either Cork (Roscarberry a particular favourite), Kerry or Clare.

The next best attender is Pat Hand, with 8 to his credit. Westport seems to be the favourite destination.

These are followed by Neil Saul (6), Tony Fox and Maria Bailey with 5 each.

Some interesting topics - Microsoft & Revenue Online - O'Keefe would have driven past Microsoft office in Sandyford on his way to Roscarberry to this course.

Optimising Tax Allowances was another one. The councillor attending this reports that it was very useful for advising his constitutents. I'm glad I'm paying my €100 to set up a councillor in competition to me.

I think there is a big issue about the relevance of many of these courses to the role of the local authority councillor. Some of these courses seem to relate to topics that have little or nothing to do with local government. I'm sure these are very interesting courses, and help the professional development of the attendees, but I really don't see why a council is paying for these courses. Here's a few examples;

- Enhancing Promotional Material, Gearoid O’Keeffe, Victor Boyhan
- La Rencontre du Potsdam, Richard Humphreys
- Executive Accountability and Parliamentary Democracy, Richard Humphreys
- Democracy Forum: Private Member’s Bills: Rejuvenation or Abolition? , Richard Humphreys
- Les Rencontres de Tallinn, Richard Humphreys, Jane Dillon Byrne

Do we really have money to pay for this stuff in the current environment?