Oireachtas seeks legal advice on TDs' travel expenses

Legal advice is being sought on the use of travel allowances by TD's Joe Higgins and Clare Daly.

Both have admitted to using their Dáil expenses while travelling the country to promote the non-payment of the Household Charge.

This evening the Houses of the Oireachtas Service has confirmed that the Travel and Accommodation Allowance incorporates travel to and from Leinster House and the Deputy's normal place of residence and any place in their constituency.

In a statement, the service said it had never envisaged that the allowance would allow deputies to travel outside of their constituencies, except for journeys to and from Leinster House.

It said it is currently seeking legal advice to clarify the position.

A statement on behalf of Deputies Higgins and Daly branded the allegations as a "scurrilous attempt" to smear the TDs.

Their statement said: "The smear campaign orchestrated by Independent Newspapers against the Socialist Party and People Before Profit Alliance TDs is cynically calculated to try and undermine effective and principled opposition to the disastrous austerity agenda implemented to bail out the speculators and bankers who gambled and lost in the property bubble which they created.

"It is scurrilous and underhanded to suggest some kind of impropriety in using a Dáil travel allowance to travel around the country addressing mass meetings and rallies against the Household Tax or indeed any other issue.

"Statutory Instrument 84/2010 refers clearly to a travel allowance that is to be used for 'travel expenses which the member is obliged to incur in the performance of his or her duties as a member of Dáil Eireann'."