politians' Salary

IrelandFly

With the trouble An Taoiseach faced recently, I would like to make inquriries about the payment the Irish politians received from the government/public per year.

I would be interested in how much the President, An Taoiseach, An Taniste, and other Ministers, 's salary would be in 2006,

I tried to search those information online, but can only manage to find this: An Taoiseach ...... receiving a salary of ?258730 in 2006...

It will be much appreciated if anyone could provide some information/or where I can find those information.

Thanks in advance

Gurgle

IrelandFly wrote:

With the trouble An Taoiseach faced recently, I would like to make inquriries about the payment the Irish politians received from the government/public per year.

I can't remember the figures but the TDs salarys are in line with senior management in the private sector.

Where some of them take the absolute piss is in their expense account - Like CJH and his £1,500 shirts. Thats the area where the should be hit with a tonne of bricks.

bounty

berties on 1/4 million... and he still can't pay back "loans" (old bribes, suddenly made public)... what a crook

do they have to itemise their expenses?

Gurgle

bounty wrote:

berties on 1/4 million... and he still can't pay back "loans" (old bribes, suddenly made public)... what a crook

I'm all in favour of bertie-bashing in general, and agree he's a total crook but in this case the money was made public after he confidentially disclosed it to the tribunal.

bounty wrote:

do they have to itemise their expenses?

afaik they do, but theres no limit on the account and theres nobody going through them looking for unreasonable expenses.

loyatemu

i've no problem with politicians being well paid provided they are doing useful work - they are running the country after all. Unfortunately most of our TDs are glorified county councillors who do nothing significant at a national level.

We have one of the highest ratios of parliamentarians to population in Europe - we could easily afford to lose 50 of them. But turkeys won't vote for Christmas...

bounty

Gurgle wrote:

I'm all in favour of bertie-bashing in general, and agree he's a total crook but in this case the money was made public after he confidentially disclosed it to the tribunal.

bertie-bashing the only reason he disclosed it, was because he was forced to, or he knew someone else would disclose it later

Gurgle wrote:

afaik they do, but theres no limit on the account and theres nobody going through them looking for unreasonable expenses.

i can imagine it now, house extensions, idle staff, holidays, chaueffeured mercs, makeup, restaurant bills.. and if its too blatant, sure they can just rig it, its not like anyone is looking for receipts

i agree with loyatemu's comments too

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

nothing to do with Business/Economy

Bertie on circa €250k, ministers of circa €160k, and basic TDs on circa €85-90k

moved to politics>

constitutionus

I'm pretty sure cabinet ministers are all on 200k with the taniste on circa 230k leaving bertie at the top with a little over 250k.
very well paid job which is why ivor callelly was so reluctant to resign and go back to the 100k a TD gets.

by the way this doesn't include expenses which can double the amount a TD gets in some cases. you do have to make statements over what its for but there's no receipts required, your word enough. there's over night allowances, mileage for reg TDs and a free car with a gardai chauffeur for the ministerial ones.

you can actually get the exact figues at the CSO (Central statistics office) website but theyre two years old.

sceptre

Gurgle wrote:

I can't remember the figures but the TDs salarys are in line with senior management in the private sector.

To be precise and pernickity, TD's salaries are linked to those of senior civil servants whose salaries in turn are in line with senior management in the private sector. It was a trick pulled by Thatcher's ministers in collusion with their civil service in the mid-80s which we later chose to follow. It effectively means that any time parliamentarians want to give themselves a pay rise, they just have to give one to the civil service and they get the rise automatically. All potential flak can be directed at the excessively greedy naughty people in the civil service (who have tenure), everyone involved wins.

IrelandFly

Thanks a lot for all these information.
Personally, I like Bertie and those ministers, they had done a lot for the country, especially the economy boom.

loyatemu

loyatemu wrote:

i've no problem with politicians being well paid provided they are doing useful work - they are running the country after all. Unfortunately most of our TDs are glorified county councillors who do nothing significant at a national level.

We have one of the highest ratios of parliamentarians to population in Europe - we could easily afford to lose 50 of them. But turkeys won't vote for Christmas...

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Generally the number of elected representatives tends to be the cube root of the population or thereabouts. We have one of the highest rates because we have one of the smallest populations.

Irish Population: 4.062m

166^3= 4,574,296

The Irish population may be slightly overrepresented but not by much. Given the supposed future rise in population the size of the Dail would seem to be about right

The_Minister

bounty wrote:

berties on 1/4 million... and he still can't pay back "loans" (old bribes, suddenly made public)... what a crook

*Sigh* He wasn't on as much as that when he got the loans, and if he was getting divorced (messily) then most of his accounts would be difficult to access pending the final seperation. (AFAIK you must be able to account for all money fro dae of divorce)

A Dub in Glasgo

I am pretty sure I read someone describe his remuneration package back then as 'modest' :eek:

One persons 'modest' is another persons rich git!

thebman

The_Minister wrote:

*Sigh* He wasn't on as much as that when he got the loans, and if he was getting divorced (messily) then most of his accounts would be difficult to access pending the final seperation. (AFAIK you must be able to account for all money fro dae of divorce)

Eh strange that he never paid back these loans since then though :rolleyes:

It's quite simple they weren't loans.

Victor

brim4brim wrote:

Eh strange that he never paid back these loans since then though :rolleyes:

And to think the friends even laid on an apartment (across from Celia's) and constituency office for him.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

think one of the argument in favour of high pay for TDs; is that it prevents them being tempted towards accepting bribes. Quite a good reason.

A Dub in Glasgo

From what I have seen, the more money you have, the greedier you get thus negating any perceived anti-bribe reasons for high pay.

ISAW

IrelandFly wrote:

... I would like to make inquriries about the payment the Irish politians received from the government/public per year.
...
It will be much appreciated if anyone could provide some information/or where I can find those information.

Thanks in advance

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=170

email or phone one of the people listed under Personell.

what senators and deputies get varies depending on how far they travel to the Oireachtas, but all are published annually. There are general salary levels however and the same applies to Principal Officers as to TD's as has been mentioned. there is also foreign travel and other allowances and invisible costs like using government jets.

The report comes out around the start of the summer.
The media usually go into a frenzy about how much each TD got. rarely do you notice the name of ANY civil servant (on the same money).

LostinBlanch

Well if you believe Eddie Hobbs last night, TDs salary is €88,000 approx; with up to the same again for expenses depending on how far they have to travel, food accommodation etc. Of course they don't have to give any receipts for that :rolleyes:

If I'm wrong with any of these figures, please feel free to correct me.

ISAW

LostinBlanch wrote:

Well if you believe Eddie Hobbs last night, TDs salary is €88,000 approx; with up to the same again for expenses depending on how far they have to travel, food accommodation etc. Of course they don't have to give any receipts for that :rolleyes:

If I'm wrong with any of these figures, please feel free to correct me.

2005 rates
http://www.publicjobs.ie/en/civilservice/salary-scaling.asp
2004 rates
http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/circulars/circular172004fig.htm


Apparently it is over 96,000 now it seems.
dont forget for every TD (who you can sack after 5 years) getting this (without full pension rights until 6 years service i.e. they must get re elected ) there are probably three PO's (1999 figures=376) and ten AP's (1999 = 1069)

At the Minister pay level.
There are 15 ministers and 15 junior ministers of State. There are about 23 Secretaries 3 Assistant secretaries and 101 Assistant Secretaries. (1999 figures).

Why ask about accountability for politicians and not for the ability to sack civil servants? Then again would the private sector be eager to give a job to an ex civil servant?

http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10006912.shtml

Beyond designer humanitarians, separating out the costs of 38,000 additional workers on the public payroll since 2001, public service salaries have increased by 38%. The comparable rise in the average industrial wage was 19%. Salaries of members of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) have risen by 100% since 1997 and the base salary (excluding unvouchered expenses) of a member of Dáil Éireann is €96,650, more than three times that average industrial wage for a male worker. In addition, 900,000 workers in the private sector, have no occupational pension. A member of Dáil Éireann is entitled to a pension for life of half annual salary, after 20 years service.

http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10007451.shtml

Top overtime earner in Irish public service made €150,000 in 2005 - 5 times the average industrial wage
In public agencies, the Health Service Executive paid €585.6m in overtime with the top recipient getting €150,000 on top of a regular salary and generous pension - 5 times the average industrial wage.

The figures show that some civil servants are earning more in overtime than the average public sector wages, with some pocketing in excess of €40,000 a year.

One individual in the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources earned €45,494 in overtime, while a civil servant in the Department of Agriculture was paid €43,053.

shatter

Deleted User wrote:

Generally the number of elected representatives tends to be the cube root of the population or thereabouts.
[...]
Irish Population: 4.062m

166^3= 4,574,296
[...]

Now, that's a good one ... this means Germany has about 231.475.544 inhabitants ...



Sorry, couldn't resist ... we habe 614 reps and believe there are 300 too many ...

Joachim

aidan24326

A TD's basic salary is around 90K. As others have mentioned, there are generous expenses on top of this. Including: free housephone and mobile, free internet, constituency office allowance, secretary allowance, mileage rates, overnight accomodation in Dublin plus meals etc etc

Victor

shatter wrote:

Now, that's a good one ... this means Germany has about 231.475.544 inhabitants ... Sorry, couldn't resist ... we habe 614 reps and believe there are 300 too many ... Joachim

But don't forget the Lander.

Meh

If we paid TDs nothing or next to nothing, then only independently rich people would be able to afford to enter politics. Don't know about you, but I wouldn't like to be governed by a bunch of Tony O'Reillys and Michael Smurfits and Denis O'Briens.

Glenbhoy

The_Minister wrote:

*Sigh* He wasn't on as much as that when he got the loans, and if he was getting divorced (messily) then most of his accounts would be difficult to access pending the final seperation. (AFAIK you must be able to account for all money fro dae of divorce)

I wasn't aware An Taoiseach was divorced?? AFAIK he was still making 4 times the average wage back then.
What do you mean by 'most of his accounts would be difficult to access...'? Luckily, An Taoiseach had 50k in his back pocket anyway, so he had no need to access any accounts, I wonder could he have used that money to pay his legal bills?? (maybe the lawyers didn't have adequate staff to count up a pile of rolled up fivers and tenners), some cynical people would say that he was hiding this money in order to scrimp on the settlement.
Anyway, back to matters at hand - td's salaries are fair enough, if anything a little low - that's why we have so many idiots there at present - who in their right mind would give up a decent career for the possible salary of a td, with no job security and putting your life under public scrutiny.
What i think is a waste is the senate. What's it all about? Do we feel that we need a house of unelected, impotent (ex-td's normally) representatives (well actually, they can't really be representatives, at least not of the general populace) - is it cos our former imperial master had 2 houses, one unelected? Honestly, what is the point?

Sleepy

Three times the average wage for a job that has holidays for the entire summer is a fair enough wage? :eek:

TD's should receive the average wage of the people they are governing. If the country's doing well, they do well. If not, they don't. Pay for performance.

damien

constitutionus wrote:

by the way this doesn't include expenses which can double the amount a TD gets in some cases.

Just ask the Oireachtas Press Office. That's what I did. They're very very helpful people.

http://www.mulley.net/2006/08/22/td-expenses-for-2005/

ISAW

Meh wrote:

If we paid TDs nothing or next to nothing, then only independently rich people would be able to afford to enter politics. Don't know about you, but I wouldn't like to be governed by a bunch of Tony O'Reillys and Michael Smurfits and Denis O'Briens.

Like we aren't already ?