TDs are ‘entitled’ to €3,000 pay hike

MINISTERS last night insisted TDs were “entitled” to take a €3,000 pay rise — despite deputies saying they did not want the increase because of the backlash it would provoke.

Tánaiste Mary Coughlan claimed it was “not perverse” for TDs to be receiving the wage boost for completing seven years in the Dáil, as their wages were linked to civil service grades which would also get the extra cash. The move saw a farcical situation arise where many of the TDs eligible for the hike said they did not want it, while the Government insisted it would go ahead.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan also defended the pay perk, despite the public service pay cuts and the need to fill the massive e4.5bn black hole in state finances in next month’s emergency budget.

About one in six TDs will be eligible for the pay hike in May — boosting their basic salary to e103,389 — simply because they have been in the Dáil since 2002.

Fine Gael said its TDs would not take the increment and called on Taoiseach Brian Cowen to abolish the rise in the budget. Government chief whip Pat Carey said it was a matter for individual TDs, but said all aspects of pay are under review as the Government seeks savings in state spending.

Fianna Fáil TD Niall Blaney joined Sinn Féin’s Arthur Morgan, Independent Finian McGrath and FF senator John Hanafin, in saying the award was inappropriate. Ms Coughlan said there was nothing “underhand” about the rise. “TDs are aligned to permanent officers in the civil service, there are automatic increments... on the basis of seven years’ service,” she said.

“People, automatically in May, will have an entitlement... It’s not perverse or in any way underhand. Like anyone else in the civil service — teachers, gardaí, etc, — they have entitlements to increases based on years of service.”

Labour chief whip Emmett Stagg said it was a matter for individual TDs. He would not be drawn on whether it would be hypocritical for Labour TDs to take such a pay rise while others in the public service had taken pay cuts. “I’m not going to get into a Dutch auction at the moment of the type ‘I’m going to cut off a bigger part of my nose than you are’,” said Mr Stagg.