TD claims over €85,000 in 'expenses'

[Papa C.]

It should be noted that 'expenses' are seperate from their normal pay and all TDs get over €110,000 per year since their latest pay rise as far as I know. €94,583 me bollix. It's well over €100,000 a year.

______________________________________________________

TD claims over €85,000 in 'expenses'

HE may still be a relative unknown to the Irish public, but Fine Gael TD Paul Keogh is already a big-money winner in the Dail's political world.

Last year, the 36-year-old Wexford TD filed for a staggering €85,227 in expenses -- a figure which falls just shy of his official €94,583 Dail salary.

Mr Keogh's near-matching of his official salary through expenses was the highest among TDs last year, but the figure is far from the only high-level individual TD cost being paid by the taxpayer.

Between December 2006 and December 2007, Ireland's 166 TDs claimed almost €6m in expenses alone, with the country's 60 senators filing for a further €4m.

On average, last year each TD filed for over €36,000 -- a figure which is far more than the average industrial wage, and is a total before any salary or bonus income is taken into account.

Ministerial expenses are usually sent among departmental expenses, and so are less easily available.

However, Maire Hoctor, who was made a junior minister in the post-election Cabinet reshuffle, also appears high on the latest full-year expenses list as she claimed €57,416 in expenses for the seven months of 2007 she spent in the Department of Health.

Before losing his seat in the 2007 election, Fine Gael's Cork North West TD Gerard Murphy claimed almost €79,000 in expenses from January to May.

The high figures are nothing new, however, with TDs and senators receiving over IR£40,000 each in expenses eight years ago.

A total of IR£5.4m was paid to members of the Oireachtas between April 1998 and April 1999.

And among those top of the expenses list at the time included current Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny (IR£42,539), and TDs Beverly Cooper Flynn (IR£41,289) and Jackie Healy-Rae (IR£41,170).