This article is from page 1 of the 2011-06-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 1 JPG
CLARE’S four TDs have started their term office in Leinster House by claiming nearly € 600 a day in expenses for the number of days the 31st Dáil has been in session in its first two months.
Figures secured by The Clare People this week have revealed that Deputies Pat Breen and Joe Carey (FG), Deputy Timmy Dooley (FF) and Deputy Michael McNamara (Lab) claimed the maximum amount of expenses for March and April of this year, even though the Dáil only sat 17 times in that two-month period.
Fine Gael colleagues, Deputies Breen and Carey, top the expenses league in Clare for these two months, each claiming € 10,091.68, a figure that’s broken down to € 5,045.84 for March and April respectively.
Deputy Timmy Dooley claimed € 4,982.84 per month in the same period for an aggregate expenses total of € 9,965.68, while Deputy Michael McNamara claimed € 4,951.84 for a total of € 9,903.68 for his first two months as a member of Dáil Éireann.
Meanwhile, the Oireachtas timetable of business in that period has revealed that the Dáil only sat for eight days in March and nine in April.
This means that in addition to earning an annual salary of € 92,672 a year, Clare’s four TDs who were elected in the February 25 General Election have claimed over € 40,000 between them in expenses for the 17 days that the Dáil sat.
The breakdown of those expenses reveal that for those 17 days that the Dáil convened, Deputies Breen and Carey each claimed € 593.62 per day, while Deputies Dooley and McNamara claimed € 586.21 and € 582.56 per day for the first two months.