9 Responses to “Expenses for Irish Senators – 2005”

1. Tipster says:

   August 22, 2006 at 9:40 pm

   Genrally, the Dublin based ones claim lower amounts.

   It would be interesting to know how much of this is benefit in kind — rent or secretarial staff for offices directly paid to the end recipient rather than the senator.

2. TD Expenses for 2005 at Irish Election says:

   August 22, 2006 at 11:33 pm

   […] Damian Mulley has a list of TD Expenses for 2005 and Irish Senators […]

3. Tipster says:

   August 23, 2006 at 11:03 am

   And Joanna Tuffy’s particularly low figure (unexceeded only by the independently wealthy Fergal Quinn, if my scanning of the list is correct) is acccounted for by her absence on maternity leave.

4. Joanna Tuffy says:

   January 6, 2007 at 12:56 pm

   Just spotted Tipster’s comment a few months later but feel I should respond and would like to make the point that my child was born in 2004 and even then I did not take maternity leave. Who would have replaced me?

5. Damien says:

   January 6, 2007 at 12:58 pm

   Thanks for responding Joanna. So why did you claim so much less than the others, out of interest?

6. Joanna Tuffy says:

   January 7, 2007 at 1:51 am

   There are anomolies in that a person like me who has a full time secreatary shows up as having less expenses than a Senator that has a part time Secretary and claims an additional expense allowance for secretarial and other expenses that I can’t claim for because of the fact that I have a full time secretary. In addition I often work from my home office on non sitting days of sitting weeks and for that reason wouldn’t claim an attendance allowance. T.D’s have a different regime to Senators and can claim expenses for setting up constituency offices and travelling around their constituency which Senator s can’t etc. Some Oireachtas members have more travel expenses than others. Some T.D’s don’t set up offices and therefore don’t claim that expense etc. Thats why a straight comparison list doesn’t always show the full picture.

7. Damien says:

   January 7, 2007 at 1:53 am

   Nice to see it explained. Thanks again.

8. Tipster says:

   January 9, 2007 at 8:37 pm

   Joanna: “Who would have replaced me?”

   Well, legally, nobody since membership of the Seanad is a personal sinecure until the next election. But if I could nominate somebody, it would be Robert Dowds.

9. Barry says:

   May 8, 2007 at 4:53 pm

   I see that my local Labour candidate has the highest sum €80k+ I’ll aks him what its for….I expect he’ll say ‘travel fro remote West Cork’ but the next highests are around €60k.

   Bye, Barry