MEPs put in longer hours than members of any other European assembly

YOUR report headlined ‘MEPs miss one in five sessions of parliament’ is misleading in a number of respects, notably in its completely inaccurate statement that the European Parliament “sits about 30% fewer days than the Dáil”.

In practice, the European Parliament meets during more weeks in the year, and has shorter recesses than any European national parliament of which I am aware. The European Parliament’s summer recess, for example, is only from the third week of July to the third week of August, and its Easter recess is only for four days.

The confusion stems from only taking into account days devoted to plenary sessions as opposed to days devoted to other parliamentary activities, such as parliamentary committee meetings.