Letters to the editor: TD’s pay rise sends wrong signal to the electorate

• Letters
• January 10, 2018

Dear Editor:

A majority of TDs have snapped up a New Year €2,707 gluttonous pay rise, despite calls from some rural deputies to refuse a fresh salary hike.

The yearly boost of €2,707 to their salaries is significant and brings their wages up to €92,672.

 

The pay for TDs is being raised to what it was formerly in line with restoration of pay for public servants.

The Taoiseach and Ministers are handing back the pay hike as was the scenario last April.

The handful of deputies handing back the pay hike include deputies Michael Fitzmaurice, Noel Rick and Hildegarde Naughten.

Sinn Fein TDs are refusing to take the extra money but the majority of TDs will.

Fianna Fail has defended the pay hike while Solidarity and People before Profit are not kicking up a tremendous fuss.

The salary of €89,965 prior to the hike appears more than adequate for a TD.

Fine Gael TD Noel Rock said: “There are a lot of people at the moment that I am fighting for to keep their homes, their farms, or get them a hospital appointment.

So should the likes of us be getting a rise then?”

Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice said: “We have to sign something to hand it back and the Oireachtas said they would have the forms next week. I have taken no rise at all.

There is damn all I can do about the salary as it is, but any increase should be going to middle Ireland”.

The size of the pay hike is downright gluttonous because it sends precisely the wrong signal to the electorate.

Yours sincerely,

Gerry Coughlan, Kilnamanagh,