Councillor based in Kerry attended nine of 46 meetings in Dún Laoghaire last year

A DÚN Laoghaire councillor based in Kerry attended only nine of a possible 46 council meetings last year, figures released to The Irish Times show.

Independent councillor Gearóid O’Keeffe, formerly a member of Fine Gael, also attended 10 conferences in Kerry, Cork and Clare and claimed mileage from Dublin.

He received €4,880 in travel and subsistence costs for attending the conferences, almost all of which were held at weekends. One of the Kerry conferences, attended on the weekend of September 23rd last year, was entitled Effective Representations for your Constituents.

Mr O’Keeffe, who joined Fine Gael in June 2010 and resigned from the party in late 2011, has been a member of Dún Laoghaire- Rathdown County Council for eight years.

He represents the Stillorgan ward and his address on the council’s website is Rocwood, Foxrock. He is a qualified barrister, but works full time in politics.

The councillor’s mobile phone bill was the highest of all the councillors last year at more than €2,500.

He paid most of this bill himself, with the council paying its maximum allowable contribution of €600 towards it.

He was also paid a councillor’s salary of €16,724, but only received €1,400 of a €6,000-plus travel and subsistence allowance paid for attendance at council meetings due to his low attendance record.

The councillor’s primary residence is at Kells Bay, near Cahersiveen in south Kerry, where he was born. Last September, his teenage son was registered at the local school. Mr O’Keeffe attended five conferences after this time in Cork and Kerry.

Speaking to The Irish Times, Mr O’Keeffe described 2011 as “chaotic”.

He said he had not attended as many council meetings as he would have wished because his family had to move to Kerry for personal reasons.

He was up and down to Dublin and was not “living in Kerry exclusively”.

He pointed out that he did not claim any expenses to travel to Dublin to attend the council meetings and said he attended eight out of 11 full council meetings. “All of those trips were from my own pocket.”

Mr O’Keeffe confirmed the travel expenses he claimed for conferences which he attended last year were calculated from his Dublin address. “Any conferences I attended I was based in Dublin at the time and left from Dublin,” he said.

This year, he added, he had in his annual declaration officially declared his Kerry home as his principal private residence, and said he would claim expenses for any conferences he attends this year from his Kerry address.

Mr O’Keeffe also said he was “now back in Dublin four days a week”, travelling up at 5.30am on Monday and returning to Kerry on Thursday evening.

The family plans to return to Dublin over the summer once his son has completed his Junior Certificate, he said.

He acknowledged his “political input” had been disrupted last year, but said he got post and emails and was “still looking after people”.

Asked why he left Fine Gael, he said he “preferred doing my own thing”.

He had great respect for Enda Kenny, he added.