€250,000: the price each TD will cost the taxpayer next year

Michael O’Farrell, Political Reporter

On average, each of the 166 TDs and 60 senators will cost €200,000 in salaries, allowances and travel expenses this year.

But that bill will jump by at least €40,000 per TD next year when the Oireachtas employs 300 new staff, including new assistants and researchers for politicians.

The recruitment of additional staff was first proposed three years ago in an unpublished Department of Finance report by Deloitte and Touche, which found the Oireachtas was significantly under-resourced by international standards.

The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission established in January this year is responsible for the finances of Leinster House and has been allocated a budget of €295m for the next three years.

Members of the Commission, along with Oireachtas committee chairpersons, are paid an extra allowance of €16,000 annually to do the job.

In its estimate of expenditure for this year, the commission has allocated an average of more than €20,000 in travel expenses to each TD and €28,000 for each of the Seanad’s 60 senators.

Commission member and Labour TD Brendan Howlin yesterday defended the new assistants, saying present resources were entirely inadequate.

Mr Howlin said details of what the new staff would do had still to be worked out but conceded they could be used to help TDs at constituency level.

“You can be assured when it does happen in the coming weeks that it will be done on the basis that it is completely transparent.

“It will be designed to make the Houses of the Oireachtas more effective and make the individual TDs more responsive to the people that elect them,” he said.

Green Party TD Paul Gogarty, an arch-critic of the Oireachtas expenses regime, yesterday welcomed the new personal assistants but queried the level of allowances received by TDs.

“It’s amazing that TDs can still simply sign a form and get expenses for it when people on social welfare have to go through very stringent criteria,” he said.

With the cost of running the Houses of the Oireachtas set to top €106m next year, TDs can expect to receive almost €110,000 each in expenses, allowances and secretarial services on top of their basic salary, which has risen to over €80,000.

Although the variation between rural and urban TDs is significant, every Oireachtas member is entitled to unvouched expenses of €61.53 simply for attending the Oireachtas. Those living more than 15 miles from Dublin also receive a €139 overnight allowance.

The total wages and allowance bill for senators and TDs will amount to €42m of taxpayers’ money this year, up by over €2m on last year. The bulk of this rise is accounted for by benchmarking and Sustaining Progress pay awards.

It does not include salaries paid to the Government’s 15 ministers, 16 ministers of state, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Tánaiste Mary Harney on top of their TD salaries. This will cost €2.3m this year.