TD expenses 2005 to 2008

We were pleased to see the announcement from the Oireachtas that from yesterday, expense claims of the Members will be published on a monthly basis. It’s a step in the right direction, and important for greater public scrutiny of the administration of the State.

Unfortunately the information is published in PDFs and contain little contextual information. Open formats and more data would have been better.

For our own part, we have been seeking for the past eight months all historical data on the expense claims of Members, from 1998 to 2009. We have made some progress. In tandem with the Oireachtas releasing its figures, we are provisionally publishing the spreadsheets of all expenses and salaries for members for the period 2005 to 2008. It is however important to point out that expenses do not cover the full cost of Members to the public purse – travel costs for example are largely paid by the Oireachtas itself and are not part of the expenses regime. We believe these costs should also be published, and probably combined with expense claims, so we have a full picture. (These figures exclude Ministerial salaries and expenses)

Some figures:

From 2005 to 2008, €97,637,195.65 was paid out to TDs in salaries and expenses.

The top 30 for the period are (a proviso: the Ceann Comhairle and his deputy receive Ministerial-like salaries, and heads of Committees receive greater amounts)

Rory O’Hanlon € 789,543.77
Michael Moynihan € 726,873.65
Bernard Allen € 725,636.56
Noel O’Flynn € 723,782.51
Sean Fleming € 722,561.57
Johnny Brady € 720,676.88
Jackie Healy-Rae € 719,350.52
Dan Neville € 712,660.55
Brendan Howlin € 709,654.03
John Cregan € 704,570.69
Padraic McCormack € 699,120.51
Ned O’Keeffe € 695,606.45
Dinny McGinley € 692,391.64
Seymour Crawford € 692,011.42
John Perry € 691,415.49
Michael Lowry € 690,947.20
Tom Hayes € 690,436.23
Peter Kelly € 684,358.22
Paul Kehoe € 680,046.39
Michael Ring € 679,042.87
Enda Kenny € 676,745.95
John O’Donoghue € 675,828.78
Phil Hogan € 672,263.48
Niall Blaney € 671,759.13
Pat Breen € 669,201.01
Jim O’Keeffe € 668,538.10
Michael Finneran € 665,965.04
John Moloney € 663,295.21
Beverley Flynn € 661,031.29
John Deasy € 659,961.01

Here is a full breakdown by member

Below is the full representation by year, including committee membership and all other expense headings. Some curious figures arise. For example:

In 2007 the biggest overall recipient of salary plus expenses was Deputy Michael Lowry. He received €194,643.02 and did not head any committees. This was the highest of any Member in the Dail, including the Ceann Comhairle (John O’Donoghue at the time) who received a Ministerial style salary (earning €189,120.56, or about €5,000 less than Mr Lowry). The main reason I can see as to why Mr Lowry stands out is his travel expenses: €70,169.08 in one year, the highest of any member, and a good €15,000 more than the next highest recipient (Michael Ring).

I am sure there are lots of other curious stats in the spreadsheets, have a look. You might see slight misspelling of names (thanks to OCR processes), but all of the figures have been triple checked against records released under the FOI Act.

2008 TD (xls)

2007 TD (xls)

2006 TD (xls)

2005 TD (xls)

I will shortly publish the same set of figures for the Seanad.