Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL GAY Mitchell has disclosed his expenses claims as an MEP on his campaign website.
The Fine Gael MEP has become the fourth of seven candidates to reveal details of his financial affairs after Mary Davis, Seán Gallagher and Martin McGuinness did so earlier this week.
According to Mitchell’s declaration, he receives no income other than the standard salary and expenses payments common to all MEPs. These include an annual wage of €91,984, plus expenses and allowances for staff and office upkeep.
Mitchell receives the standard €298 per day in food, travel and accommodation expenses for attending the European Parliament. His campaign said the total for 2011, up to June 30, came to €47,800.
According to the statement he maintains a full-time office in Dublin, as well as a sub-office, for which he receives an allowance of €4,202 per month. He employs five staff and one intern, and said his staff bill for 2009 was €202,000.
Mitchell is also entitled to pension payments as a former TD and government minister. However, he has donated these to the State.
A written declaration on his European Parliament web page states that Mitchell received no payments from other professional or personal activities.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Enough now of private builders, time to build homes on public land.
Like in the 70s. Everyone got a home to raise their families.even when the country was broke.
@Colette Byrne: I wish people would stop going on about public housing that was built in the 70’s…..90% of it is wrecked,67% are in arrears on what is tiny rent and the maintenance bill for the upkeep is huge….people go on as if it was a huge success,it was and still is not…second point is,let’s say we have 50000 builders in the country and we set up a state building company..where do the builders come from?yes,from the private sector and we would still have 50k builders,and we all know how public infrastructure works in the country,less houses would be built and it would cost 20 times more!
@Colette Byrne: Homes were built in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, by local authorities across the country, those that got them and reared families in them paid rent went out to work and earned a living and didn’t expect to live in them rent free, we now have a certain element in the country that think it’s their divine right to a house without having to make an effort to pay for it.
@Colette Byrne: Ffg want everything to go to the 1% They learned from the British to bend the knee , and them and thiers will be minded
@Leonard Barry: with the emphasis on “a certain element”. As for those that think it is all free, it is not. Only thing that is cheaper is the rent, all other bills are exactly the same as any other person living in Ireland.
@peter willekens: BTW, that is a rent that is affordable, not the one where you pay 2000 euros for the shed in the back garden a month.
@John Paul:
67% are in arrears, where are getting your information from.
@peter willekens: Plenty of that certain element are also way behind on their bills and get a host of other things and benefits completely free compared to the rest of us and medical cards.
@Thomas O’Brien: Google total amount of people percentage wise in council housing in arrears….its 67% and last time I looked it was 120 million.
@John Paul:
Google shouldn’t have that information because it infringes on people’s privacy and GDPR. Your definition of council housing is out of date, as lots of council houses are privately owned. You need to get off your high horse and stop looking down on people less fortunate than yourself.
@John Paul: And I wish people would stop saying we have a shortage of trades. If we had started incentivising people into trades 10 years ago we wouldn’t have that problem now. Your post reads like a long list of reasons not to do anything. You should get a job with FFG and you can come back in 5 years time to tell us how this can’t be fixed over night.
@John Paul: well thats not true. The biggest issue with the houses built in the 60s/70s alot of them where sold to the tenants
Need to build high rise apartments for social and affordable and council housing
@Rian O’Sullivan: They tried it in Ballymun and had to go back to the drawing board. Some people are not able to share public spaces, lifts etc. What works in private developments won’t work in state dependent communities.
@Rian O’Sullivan: social housing shouldn’t exist
@thomas molloy: Well then tough they live in squalor they get their chance if they don’t take it tough. Game over.
@Joe Willis: Tents?
Why can’t the Government just admit that they’re would be a lot more housing built if they stopped narrowing down roads in cities and towns for vanity cycle lanes that aren’t even being used or the BIG MASSIVE footpaths….
@Tommy: we need massive footpaths we have one of the most obese populations in the world
We’ll get the usual, not enough builders ect ect. If that’s the problem, stop setting silly targets. Say it for what it is. Alas Fffg can’t handle the truth..
@Paul Gorry: who can?
@Oh Mammy: Who can’t?
@Paul Gorry: Silly targets like the opposition throw out!…I’m an electrician and working over 30 years and I’ve never seen such a shortage of every trade….too many choices for young fellows now and working on a wet January on a building site is not attractive to most.Plus I know lots of Eastern European lads have gone home because there is work at home now for them.People like you hate facts and believe exactly the nonsense that the opposition throw out that it’s easy to fix everything.
@John Paul: So you’ve totally missed my point. Why offer targets that will never be achieved? It’s absolutely nothing to do with the opposition. And just to add, ye said on another article yesterday ( Thursday) you were “35: years in the building trade. Make your mind up troll…
@Paul Gorry: my question is respectful. Please answer.
@Oh Mammy: My question with respect @ Oh Mammy is who’s in government and failing us in 2025? It’s definitely not the opposition,as much as your silly mind believes it might be.
@Oh Mammy: Tom thinks he can, Jack disagrees..
@Paul Gorry: I said over 30 years……I’m an electrician(qualified 33 years ago)but obviously worked before that on building sites….and I didn’t miss your point.You moaned about’silly targets’…..Sf said everyone would get a house for 150k.How silly is that!
@John Paul: Here we go again. SF, is there any article that SF has had no hand in causing the problem to be left out of being accused of telling lies. Who’s to say they wouldn’t squander money like the shower we have and subsided the houses. We’ll never know until people take the blinkers off and let them have a chance. I don’t know if SF will be better than Mehole and Slymball, but it’s hard to believe that anything could be worse.
@Paul Harte: under Sf nobody would work and it would turn into a complete socialist society where there would be more handouts. The problem in Ireland is that we don’t have any proper parties actually working for the people of Ireland they are just in it for themselves and I think everybody knows that at this stage , that’s the thing in Ireland. We have to keep voting for the same people over and over and expecting a different result. We just need to abolish all these parties and get fresh thinking fresh minded people business minded people people who can actually do a proper job and we can get value for money that would be my take on it otherwise we’re just gonna be talking about this for the next 20 years when nothing will be done to improve the situation
@John Paul: Ahhh, it’s the shinners’ fault john paul. Silly me.
@Bren: We’ll never know while the narrow-minded people change. I’m not saying SF is the answer, but one fact is that voting the same shower in time after time is certainly not the answer. No, we don’t have proper parties working for the people, but we do have the current shower who is nothing but wasters and has been for as long as I can remember and I’m voting over 40 yrs. WE NEED TO GET RID OF THIS SHOWER.
@Bren: Yeah nobody would work. Everything in society will just magically take care of itself. Jaysus some white spouted on here.
If they stop turning every vacant building into ipas centres and make apartments or houses would help
@John Kenny: a good comment that’s exactly a good point
@John Kenny: Why did we never care about the homeless before immigration?
In a bold new initiative aimed at solving the housing crisis,the Government has decided to issue Wendy Houses to all young adults.
@Patrick Westman: Amazing what they can do, Wendy really put their minds to it…
A lot of yanks now looking at this country to buy property.This will no doubt drive up the price of houses further.Also people from climate affected countries looking towards Ireland.FFG need to prioritize our own citizens or we will be overwhelemed with foreigners.
@Willie Marty: As do Irish people returning from Dubai and the like or Dubliners moving west.
Don’t worry, the two d!ckhe@ds running the country said housing is their number one priority, and not to trust these forecasts as it’s not a real science – all that’s needed is something ‘disruptive’, apparently… my god we are really doomed, wonder will there be room in the IPAS centres for us when there’s nowhere left to live
@Ethan Gannon: No, there won’t be room for the Irish anywhere. Just look at what’s happening that man in Tipp, and that should tell you what they think of the Irish who try not to be a burden to the state and help themselves.
@Ethan Gannon: Housing is not in crisis. 65% of Irish people already have one.
How thick are FFGers. They have been in power since the foundation of the state. Record homelessness, spiralling poverty levels amongst young people. Record hospital waiting lists. This is FFGs record. It’s not the oppositions fault.
@Daniel Gilroy: FF with the cooperation of FG are the cause of the growing pains of their successful management. As Ireland will keep growing they need to prepare for more growth but stop guessing randomly.
@thomas molloy: As I said, thick as the preverbial.
If you don’t vote or keep voting for the ffg entitled wasters Look in the mirror there you will find the reason for all your issues
@Robert Halvey: Change the record.No one believes the fairy tales of Sf/ira or the other student union politicians that are in the dail….Sf promised to give everyone a house for 150k(how deluded is that)
@John Paul: How deluded are you to think it couldn’t be done. 1st off, they could be subsided by the government. Maybe SF would spend the money more wisely than the current shower. Who knows ? I do know we’ll never know because of the narrow mindness of people who aren’t willing to give them a chance but still vote in the same old same and expect things to change. They haven’t changed in the last century and got away with it. You can see the smugness in Meholes and Slymballs face now that well we got away with it and nothing can be done about it. I can’t stand McGregor, but he opened people’s eyes to what is going on, and they are running crap less because he told it as it is. People need to wake up. Time to wake up to what we have
@Paul Harte: for 100% but the problem is people won’t wake up. They like to complain about it but they don’t want to find a solution and they keep defending our current shower of circus clowns
@Paul Harte: so the government are going to subsidize house buying so prices are 150k, on a rough calculation you would be looking at a subsidy of around 200k per house or 10 billion extra taxes per year to pay for it. It’s policies like this that have SF sitting on the sidelines again.
The next small thing: Well, unless you have been asleep, the price of actually building a house hasn’t gone up that much, actually. It’s the profit margins have hit the roof. I’d a lot of builders are covering their backside in case things go belly up again
@Paul Harte: both materials and labour costs have increased massively over the last few years. If the profit is so good why don’t the opposition parties start a building company/coop and go and build these houses and show up the government? Imagine how many more votes they would get with practical evidence rather than the usual rhetoric.
The next small thing: And didn’t one party suggest that, but it was shot down by the current shower. Look, I’m not saying I know how to fix the problem, but I’m not elected or paid enough to try and fix it. One thing that is for sure is the things that are elected and paid way too much to try and fix it have failed, and yet people still think they’ll do it and believe the lies they spin to get back to do nothing again yourself included.
Any wonder the birthrate is nearly on par with death rate. This is a crisis.
Need council homes 100% not 10%new builds
@sam o brien: need affordable homes for those who work, not free ones for those that won’t work
@Johnny Wilson: yur wrong..people in council houses who do work.
Oh Christ I’m getting a mcgregor on me
@Altoir: Stick him in a ” choke hold.” Sorted..
Sick of this Sh@# I’ve told my 4 kids to go elsewhere and pay their taxes all college educated .
They’ll not be able to live in this country or afford a house for the foreseeable future , all teachers and nurses. Go and enjoy life instead of just living to pay bills in a country that does care about them.
@Dave O Neill: Go where?….Britain/canada/australia/usa all have similar/worse situations.
@Dave O Neill: and I bet all your kids were educated for way less than any of the countries i mentioned….but hey,people like you think everything should be free/next to it.
@Dave O Neill: it’s next to impossible for young people to get a home there really is no hope for them unless thyre earning a fortune or come from well off family it’s a disgrace.
No surprise there.
I know a few other things that aren’t an “exact science”. Yet I wasn’t elected to do something about it……
Of course they’ll miss it. There are not enough trades people in the country to build that many houses.
The only people that vote for ffg gombeens are the senile old sheeple that can’t seem to phantom that these parties consist of useless corrupt politicians
@Brian Molloy: And the only people who vote for Sf are layabout armchair republicans….thankfully not too many of them to get them into government and no other party wants to work with them.
No way… really… didn’t see that coming
Because blondie Karen doesn’t want any feckin foreigners in the country while indulging in cheap crappy fries from her local Chinese, thousands of skilled foreigners in trades are leaving Ireland anually.
@Chris: Great hopefully they all go
SF free houses no work for everyone
What has Basketball got to do with this?
@Pat Barry: Oh I get it, missing the target, a bit of a tenuous link.
have your say