Keeping on the Sammy Wilson theme, it seems the Environment Minister (who is an MP, an MLA and a Belfast councillor) believes that if you are a MLA and a councillor you shouldn’t get your full allowance for being a councillor.
That would mean losing out on about £6,000 salary. No mention on slashing the MLA salary of £42,000, or the MP salary of £63,000.
Of course as an MP, the Minister only gets two thirds of his MLA salary…do the maths; two thirds of a councillor’s allowance, plus an MP’s pay packet, plus two thirds of an MLA’s salary, plus additional ministerial allowance. What was the average pay packet in Northern Ireland again? How many workers are facing pay freezes, pay cuts or redundancy?
While this debate was slicing through the airwaves, few thought to mention that no Welsh Assembly Members sat as Westminster MPs.
As Environment Minister with responsibility for local government, Sammy Wilson has a major say in setting the allowances for councillors. He did, however, declare that he wouldn’t legislate to cut the allowances paid to councillors who are also MLAs.
The Minister said that being a councillor and an MLA wasn’t a conflict of interest. Which means, if you are in the Minister responsible for planning, as Sammy is, you can attack your own planning officials as a councillor. Not that the Minister would ever do that…oh, right, there was that development in Great Victoria Street…
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