IT HAS BEEN 60 days since the general election, and we still don’t have a new government.
Frustration is mounting, and voters and commentators are increasingly looking at the cost to taxpayers of the post-election period.
How much are ministers and TDs actually getting paid these days, and are they really doing nothing?
We’ve examined some particularly pointed claims made on Friday night’s Late Late Show, and tried to separate the truth from the lies.
Remember, if you see a dodgy claim somewhere, email factcheck@thejournal.ie.
Claim: Since the election, TDs have been paid €2.2 million, and some ministers have been paid €25,000, to do nothing
Verdict: FALSE. Those amounts are exaggerated, and while our politicians aren’t doing anything close their normal workload, they’re certainly not doing nothing.
What was said:
It’s a claim that has been made in broad terms several times, from several quarters over the last two months, but was crystallised on Friday’s Late Late Show.
Comedian Oliver Callan stated:
By my reckoning, you’ve got ministers sitting there, they’ve got seals of office, and this is a very rough, back-of-the-envelope, very conservative estimate – some of them have earned about €25,000 doing absolutely nothing since the election day.
And chef Richard Corrigan claimed:
€2.2 million of taxpayers’ money has gone to the politicians, doing nothing.
We’re not sure of Corrigan’s source for that claim, but it could well have been an Irish Independent article published on Friday evening, which stated “More than €2.2 million paid to TDs since general election…”
Let’s break this into two parts: first, what have TDs and ministers been paid? And second, what have they actually been doing?
And before we start, a quick note. The purpose of this article is just to lay out the facts. It’s entirely up to you to decide whether our politicians deserve the pay they’re getting, for the work they’re doing.
TDs
There are 158 TDs in the Dáil, all of whom are paid an annual salary of €87,258 on a monthly basis, on the last Friday of each month.
According to Oireachtas rules, TDs are paid their basic salary “from the date of the election”. Since the election was on 26 February, this means 158 TDs were paid for four days that month, and March.
The Houses of the Oireachtas confirmed to us that deputies were paid once since the election – on 24 March. Their next pay day is this Friday, 29 April.
That’s €7,271.50 for March, and €956.25 for the last four days in February – or €8,227.75 each since election day.
That’s a total of €1,299,984.50 in pre-tax basic salary for the 32nd Dáil, so far.
It is true that some TDs take only the average industrial wage, but the remainder of their salary goes to their parties, rather than being remitted to the exchequer.
Ministers and other office-holders
Apart from the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, ministers and junior ministers are paid €70,282 and €34,381 per year, respectively, on top of their TD salary.
Every fortnight, they are paid the equivalent of their annual salary divided by 26.09, and the Department of Public Expenditure confirmed to us that there have been four pay days since the election.
Their next pay day is Thursday 5 May.
So let’s see how ministerial pay breaks down:
Allowances
Let’s add them all up:
So Richard Corrigan’s claim on the Late Late Show, that “€2.2 million of taxpayers’ money has gone to the politicians”, is clearly FALSE.
Oliver Callan’s claim that some ministers “have earned about €25,000″, is closer to the mark.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has earned €23,266.77 in salary. We don’t know what his allowances were for March, but we do know that in February, a month that also had just two Dáil sittings, he was paid €137.93. That would be a total of €23,404.70.
Tánaiste Joan Burton was also paid €137.93 in February, and as her salary since the election was €21,114.07, that would come to an estimated total of €21,252.
So the highest likely total remuneration for any cabinet member is €23,404.70, which is about 6% shy of the €25,000 claimed by Oliver Callan.
We don’t want to be too hard on what was a “back-of-the-envelope” calculation, after all, but Callan also called it a “very conservative estimate”, and applied the claim to “some ministers”, as opposed to only the Taoiseach.
It’s also crucial to bear in mind that all these figures are gross – they don’t take into account tax deducted.
Taking all that into account, Callan’s claim is Mostly FALSE.
TDs
To put this in perspective, and get a sense of what the Dáil’s typical workload is, let’s see what they were up to during the same period (27 February to 25 April) last year.
Ministers
Clearly, the claims about pay are exaggerated and false. However, if we still don’t have a new government by Friday, that would radically change the state of affairs, as TDs get another €1.3 million deposited into their bank accounts.
It is also clear that TDs and ministers, on the whole, are not “doing nothing.”
They’re not passing bills, or doing much in the way of committee work. Their sitting days have been few and far between (despite the efforts of some TDs to arrange additional sessions).
But TDs (most of them) have still been doing the work of gathering important information and attempting to hold ministers to account through parliamentary questions.
Ministers are still exercising their formal functions at public events, and passing statutory instruments.
And a small number of TDs and ministers have been working to end the deadlock and bring about a new government.
Whether they deserve their pay since the election, or their workload has been acceptable, those are completely separate questions, and entirely for you to decide.
But as of today’s date, the facts are clear – the claim that TDs have been paid €2.2 million, and some ministers have been paid €25,000, to do nothing since the election, is FALSE.
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