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Updated 20:19
BOTH HOUSES OF the Oireachtas sat longer and cost less last year according to new figures published earlier on today.
The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission has published its annual report for last year today stating that it spent €105.5 million last year against a budget of €115.6 million, meaning a nine per cent saving.
Sitting days increased by nearly a quarter – 23 per cent – with 123 Dáil sitting days last year amounting to a total of 1,001 sitting hours with the Seanad sitting on 110 days, for a total of 698 hours.
One point to note is that 2011 was an election year where the Dáil didn’t sit for over a month because of the vote in addition to all its usual recess weeks.
Committees met on 572 occasions and held meetings for 1,032 hours, producing 18 reports last year. A total of 119 Bills were published and 54 Acts or laws were passed with some 4,450 amendments tabled to legislation as it made its way through the Oireachtas.
Over 56,000 parliamentary questions were processed. Benchmarked against 18 other national parliaments this is among one of the highest, only surpassed by the UK where over 100,000 PQs are processed annually.
The Irish parliament did not pass as many laws as several other countries, finishing 10th out of 17 parliaments it was benchmarked against and trailing behind the likes of the US and Russia.
However the Oireachtas had a lower overall cost per member of parliament than the US, Australia, Canada, the UK, Italy, Austria and Belgium and fewer administrative staff per member, fewer political staff per member and fewer total staff per member than the average.
With 12 recess weeks, Ireland ranks 11th out of 18 other parliaments, better than Australia (which has 35 recess weeks), Canada, Poland and Spain but that was more recess weeks last year than Austria, Italy and the US.
The Commission also said there were 138 Freedom of Information requests received in 2012. The majority of requests (116 or 83 per cent) came from the media.
It also said that 2,086 documents were laid before the houses in 2012 with 99 per cent of these documents being laid electronically by Departments and Agencies following the development of an electronic system.
First published 15:22.
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Only €466,814.16 per politician… Half a million if you round it off. I’d like a breakdown of where the money goes.
Off the top of the head costs would include
wages for staff
electricity
security
archiving of transcripts
IT
Broadcasting
If you averaged the cost of my workplace it probably works out at over 100k per employee
but I don’t earn anywhere near that.
Best be careful on how we use statistics.
Keep these stats, and print in meter square posters and display at every cross roads at the next election.
At least the Dáil bar turned a profit! lol
The tuck shop didnt :(
They have no chocolate. :(
Declan
The Dail Bar didn’t make a profit ! If you look at the Accounts you will see that there is no allocation for staff and the turnover suggests a staffing level that would only allow it to break even.
@Rick (Paddy Rodgers) McRory
Pity it wasant shut Prom Night…An absolute disgrace listening to drunk TDs make the second biggest mistake in the history of the State. They should hang their heads in shame!
That’s €17:24 A SECOND!
And Anglo did no business and continues to cost 30bn plus interest!
Politicans obviously hiking up expense claims to counter act cuts to their salaries. How predictable.
Look at how much damage they have done to us “ordinary ” folk during that time while they make laws and threats which force us to pay off the Bankers debts. There is no democracy in the dail -what with the Party whip etc. To cut costs we could get rid of the lot of them and just leave the cabinet. They make all the decisions anyway.
Then GET OFF YOUR FAT ARSE AND VOTE FOR BETTER POLITICIONS!!!
Thank you for your polite reply Adrian Martyn. I did get off my rather thin one and thought I was voting for better ones- but hey fool me once shame on you,fool me twice !!!!!!. not me. Reform the Dail.
Nelly, apologies for my choice of words. But I hold that the sentiment is true, even if my choice of words bad.
Dead right, reform it!
Value for money, I certainly think not!
Then vote for better politicions.
Jez, its a democracy. No matter how bad they get, politicions are only 50% of the problem. The rest of the blame belongs to the voters.
very true adrian
35 weeks recess in Australia? #dreamjob
Pity we couldn’t encourage a few of our politicians and senators to emigrate!
We need real change in this country
The politics of FG,FF,LAB have failed,
I would urge people next election to avoid voting for any of the above.
Greed and self interest is all that drives
them.
€62000 ( 62 thousand ) per HOUR. Wtf.
Sure isn’t it worth it ,ha.
That’s an awful lot of money for talking shite.
And not a child in the house washed
Since ’08, how much have cost us (excluding the mortgage debt) 40,000m to
- €50,000 million?
Does this year’s report say they publish the transcripts “always the same day or the next day”?
Wasn’t true last year, wasn’t true the year before.
i am pleased with these stats, heading in the right direction, but still seems a lot of money. maybe next year they will tackle the perks and the wage for the politician, the exit pension and all that sort of thing, also how we chose our politicans who actually can work better without a bevy of advisors, did they cost that in?
So if my maths is right they cost us €62,095.35 per hour to run both Houses of the Oireachtas. I can’t decide whether that’s good or bad value for money !!!
The sooner this referendum occurs the better. Senator Norris got a lot of publicity for turning up to speak on it the other day despite health issues. Fair play for turning up, but by Norris standards the speech was cringe worthy. It’s a place for want to be politicians, has been politicians with a few special guests thrown into the mix. Bring the closure on asap.
That €100million+ figure is just over 1% of Dublin City Council’s annual spend. What I want to know is why isn’t Dublin City Council being hounded to save money????? And what are they spending it on, ’cause the streets are dirty, pavements bockety and apart from going for pints after 9pm there’s very little else to do??!!!
Ricky mc rory has it right…. Tuck shop was contracted out, a fee was received for license as such no profits or losses were made.
The more observant of you would realise the truth about the profitability of the dail bar…….
Less than 33Hrs per week per politician(worked). That’s 52 wks a year. Every Politician that says he/she is working 70 to 80hrs a week is being underpaid. Forget about the inquiry into the Banks, Find out why our Politicians are NOT being paid the proper rate……
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