Six MEPs to lose €200,000 a year after election

SIX of Ireland’s 13 MEPs will have their salaries and expenses cut by around €200,000 a year following the General Election.

Up to now, members of the Oireachtas could also hold a seat in the European Parliament but, under a EU agreement, that right ended when the General Election was called.

TDs and MEPs are paid the same salary — between €90,770 and €96,560 a year after 10 years’ service. They can double this sum when allowances for travel, overnight, office allowances and office staff are included.

Ireland is the last country in the EU to allow elected politicians to hold down a seat in both national and European assemblies. All other member states gave up their dual mandates in the last European Parliament elections in June 2004, with the exception of two British members of the House of Lords.

The Irish and British governments brokered a concession for its politicians that said they could continue in two jobs until the next general election.

As a result, once the Taoiseach called the election, five TDs and one senator, who were also MEPs, lost their Oireachtas salaries and perks.

They are North-West: MEPs Marian Harkin, independent, and Jim Higgins, a Fine Gael Senator; East: Liam Aylward, FF; Dublin: Gay Mitchell, FG and Eoin Ryan, FF; South: Simon Coveney.

Two of the MEPs, Mr Aylward and Mr Mitchell, having spent more than 20 years as TDs, are eligible for their Dáil pension.

This is 50% of their final Dáil salary, index-linked, and a lump sum of one-and-a-half times their final salary.

The three other retiring TDs and the senator have also earned a pension of between 25% and 50% of their final salary, but not all are entitled to collect it yet.

Fine Gael’s Simon Coveney, who was elected to the Dáil, will resign from the European Parliament, handing over his seat to Cork solicitor Colm Burke.

Two MEPs, Fine Gael’s Máiréad McGuinness and Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald, who failed in their attempt to be elected to the Dáil, are expected to remain in the parliament.

The end of the dual mandate will also mean an end to MEPs having to rush back to Dublin for important votes and dividing their time between their constituency, Dublin, Strasbourg and Brussels.

MEPs are paid the same as those elected to their national parliaments, which means there is a huge difference in the salaries of the 785 from the 25 member states.

The best paid are the Italians, at over €133,000, and the worst are the Hungarians, who are on about €9,200 a year.

Perhaps the best-paid politician to sit in the European Parliament was Ian Paisley when he also held seats in the British House of Commons and in the Northern Ireland Assembly.