Labour TD never revealed €10k salary

LABOUR Party TD Joe Costello failed to declare his partial teachers’ salary in the Dáil Register of Members’ Interests last year.

Mr Costello is one of 20 current TDs and senators to have been paid a total of almost €500,000 by the Department of Education, for being on leave of absence from a teaching job in the past five years.

The figures released by the department under the Freedom of Information Act show the former secondary school teacher was paid €10,096 in residual salary last year. Teachers in the Dáil or Seanad are entitled to paid leave of absence, receiving the difference between their own salary and that of a replacement teacher.