As Ireland braces itself for budget cuts, politicians cut secret deal for 3million euro a year budget increase

By KEN FOXE
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Dail deputies and senators have awarded themselves a €3m budget INCREASE for next year – just weeks after they secretly gave themselves an extra €14m to cover a massive overspend for 2011.

While almost every other State-funded service will find its budget cut next month, the Houses of the Oireachtas have simply awarded themselves extra cash to cover their own soaring costs.

Much of the €3m increase is to cover higher salaries and expenses for TDs and senators. But it also includes €750,000 to cover the costs of buying new office equipment – begging the question as to why new arrivals cannot simply use the same equipment as their predecessors.

The overall Oireachtas budget for 2012 will be €115.6m – an increase of €2.6m on the 2011 budget, which was set at €113m.

The amount paid out in salaries for TDs and senators will increase by €400,000 in 2012.

A total of €604,000 extra has been budgeted for members of the Dáil to cover the costs of setting up and running constituency offices, with an extra €53,000 allocated to the Seanad.

Politicians' travel expenses will also increase with an additional €408,000 earmarked to cover their journeys to and from Leinster House. Of that, €265,000 has been set aside for the Dáil, €52,000 for the Senate and another €91,000 for committee travel, most of it overseas.

The amount set aside to pay 'other allowances and expenses' for TDs and senators will be increased by more than €650,000. Overall, politicians' expenses for the year will rise by more than €1m, from €11.95m to €13m.

The salaries and wages of Oireachtas staff will rise by €738,000 in 2012. Their travel and subsistence budget will also rise, by €98,000.

And an extra €737,000 will be spent on office machinery and supplies, in part to help kit out the offices of newly elected politicians.

The increases will infuriate hard-working families who are about to see their pay packets raided again in next month's Budget, with average families expected to be hit for up to €1,000 a year in extra taxes such as VAT. Most people also expected to see major cuts in services as schools and hospitals are told there is no extra money in the national kitty.

Yet, astonishingly, the €3m budget increase for politicians comes just weeks after the Oireachtas quietly awarded itself an extra €14m after realising that it had massively overspent its 2011 budget.

This €14m emergency cash injection, which was not voted on or debated in public, came on top of the €113m that taxpayers had already stumped up for 2011 – but which the politicians had already spent.

Large amounts of the cash has been used to fund the giant pensions and pay-offs for disgraced former politicians such as Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen and the Fianna Fáil-PD cabinet that destroyed the nation's economy.

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The extra €14m was 'announced' in the Dáil on September 27. But anybody sitting in the gallery – or even a TD in the chamber – got little clue that the Oireachtas was handing itself a huge cash infusion to cover its giant overspend.

Labour TD Jack Wall addressed the chamber shortly after 5pm and said: 'I move that Dáil Éireann take note of the supplementary statement of estimates not exceeding €13,963,000 required by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on December 31, 2011 in respect of ongoing expenditure, including a grant-in-aid.'

According to the record of the Dáil, no one spoke to the motion – if, indeed, there were even any TDs present – and the question was 'put and agreed to'.

There was no public debate as to why such a giant overspend had occurred or what measures had been put in place to ensure it was not repeated.

The Oireachtas insists the cash was needed to pay for the unexpected departure of scores of TDs and ministers, who each receive giant lump sums on top of their lavish pensions. The idea of telling the departing TDs and senators they would have to take a cut on their golden handshakes does not seem to have been entertained.

In all, a staggering €4.5m was paid out to cover the payments for 'former members of the Houses'.

A further €8.7m was approved to help offset the costs of the pension scheme of Leinster House politicians. And on top of that, yet another €5.4m also had to be siphoned off to cover redundancy costs for secretaries and staff who had worked for the TDs and senators thrown out by the electorate.

The Oireachtas said it managed to claw back some of that extra cash by making savings. An additional €19.27m had actually been required, but €5.3m saved in other areas helped reduce the impact for the taxpayer. However the most obvious saving – withholding or cutting back the payouts to politicians – was apparently never considered.

The Oireachtas said the reason the deficit had been so stark was because it had not expected an election until next year. A spokesman said: 'Provision was not made for elections when the estimate was submitted to the Dáil in November 2010 as the election was not scheduled at that stage until 2012.

'Basically, the Oireachtas had budgeted for an election in 2012 as this was the year that an election was due to take place. Because the election was held a year earlier, the Oireachtas required a supplementary estimate to cover this.'

The vast majority of the €14m related to payments and pensions for TDs, senators, and other staff who had lost their jobs after the election. But other areas underestimated included a small €90,000 shortfall in wages for catering and bar staff and €381,000 for televising parliamentary proceedings.

The Oireachtas said it was required by legislation to make a statement of estimates to the Dáil, normally in October or November.

It is drafted by the Houses of the Oireachtas Finance Committee, currently made up of Senators Paddy Burke and Marc MacSharry and TDs Frank Feighan, Dan Neville and Mr Wall.

The budget is then sent to the Oireachtas Commission, a larger cross-party group of politicians, for a final seal of approval.

The estimate – and any additional expenditure estimate – is then briefly mentioned in the Dáil before being sent to the Department of Finance to be signed off.

There is no opportunity for debating its contents outside of the confines of the closed meetings of the Oireachtas Commission. A spokesman for the Oireachtas said: 'The Commission approved a supplementary statement of estimates for €13.963m. The supplementary estimate was noted by the Dáil on September 27, then published on the Oireachtas website on the same day.

'The Oireachtas has not gone over budget. The Oireachtas works on a three-year budgetary cycle and the budget must be looked at over the full three years. Provision had been made for an election in 2012.'

The spokesman said spending on the running of Leinster House had decreased dramatically in recent years and defended the increased budget for 2012. He said there was a 'very low level of travel' because of the general election this year and that savings had been made during the 'dissolution period' of the Dáil when salaries and expenses did not have to be paid.