Kilkenny Councillor says money paid to politicians should be more fairly divided

Money paid to politicians should be more evenly and fairly divided as local councillors are expected to do their work for €5 an hour.

So says Kilkenny councillor Breda Gardner who says a lot of her colleagues locally and around the country are under increasing amounts of stress because of the demands placed on local representatives.

She was asked to give a talk to a national gathering of elected members last year on how to cope with stress, which she says really opened her eyes to the problem.

At a meeting of the Kilkenny City district on Friday, members were told that the average hours worked by a councillor per week was 27.

However, Councillor Gardner thinks it’s a lot more than that.

And she told KCLR News she feels there’s a huge disparity between what local and national representatives are paid.