Comments on: Expenses for Irish Senators – 2005

By: Barry

Barry — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:53:08 +0000

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

Bye, Barry

By: Tipster

Tipster — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 19:37:07 +0000

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.

By: Damien

Damien — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 00:53:07 +0000

Nice to see it explained. Thanks again.

By: Joanna Tuffy

Joanna Tuffy — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 00:51:18 +0000

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.

By: Damien

Damien — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:58:02 +0000

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

By: Joanna Tuffy

Joanna Tuffy — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:56:24 +0000

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?

By: Tipster

Tipster — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 10:03:15 +0000

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.

By: TD Expenses for 2005 at Irish Election

TD Expenses for 2005 at Irish Election — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 22:33:48 +0000

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

By: Tipster

Tipster — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:40:29 +0000

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.