Euro think-tank claim €162,000 expenses

MEMBERS of the State's European think-tank, the National Forum on Europe, have clocked up more than €162,000 in expenses in a year.

Five delegates have claimed more than €9,000 in expenses from attending meetings and 10 have topped the €5,000 mark. The Forum on Europe will have cost the taxpayer almost €3 million when it ends its activities in the summer.

Labour Party Cllr Denis Landy tops the expenses league after chalking up almost €10,700. Labour Party delegates have claimed the largest amount of all the groups attending the forum with delegates taking away more than €34,000.

Northern Ireland Alliance Party delegate Cllr Stewart Dickson comes second with €10,500. Green Party TD Dan Boyle is third on €9,900.

Forum chairman Senator Maurice Hayes claimed just over €9,200 in expenses, as well as being paid €63,500 to chair the think-tank - that’s on top of his salary of €48,000 from the Seanad. Fianna Fáil delegate Prof Noel Mulcahy on 9,142 completes the top five claimants.

Details of the expenses claimed between October 2001 and October 2002 were released to the Irish Examiner under the Freedom of Information Act.

All expenses claimed by the delegates are legitimate and checked fully by Forum administration staff.

Delegates are paid €229 per sitting day for attending the Forum but this attendance allowance is not paid to TDs or senators or full-time officials of organisations such as trade unions or employer bodies. Members can also claim travel and subsistence allowance at regular Civil Service rates. The €229 allowance was calculated from the base rate paid to delegates to the Forum on Peace and Reconciliation but increased to account for inflation. The allowance is paid to compensate for loss of earnings in respect of time devoted to travelling and attending Forum meetings. Labour Cllr Denis Landy said he attended almost all of the meetings as a party representative and had to travel up from Tipperary.

Green Party TD Dan Boyle pointed out that he was his party’s leader on the forum, as well as being a member of the steering committee, and he gave up full-time employment when he was appointed to the forum in 2001. Since he became a TD in the election he has not been entitled to claim expenses from the forum According to government estimates, the Forum on Europe cost the taxpayer €197,000 in 2001, €2 million in 2002 and a further €700,000 has been allocated for this year.