Politicians must remove discredited system of allowances and expenses

THE Government took a brief break from taking an axe to public services last week in order to bulldoze through its labyrinthine €112m Oireachtas budget without any potentially embarrassing debate.

The 2013 estimates, which include salary payments of over €20m and expenses of €11m for our elected representatives, is a €4m increase on this year’s estimates — an increase that, apparently, is not worth a single second of debate in the Dáil.

Perhaps the Government, having spent months going through other public sector budgets with a fine-tooth comb, desperately looking for services to slash, was too tired to trouble itself with the tedious minutiae of its own byzantine finances.