A comparison: salaries and perks for MEPs and TDs

Salary: TDs get €95,363 - €101,445, depending on length of service. Irish MEPs get the same salary but it will fall to €88,000 from 2009.

Daily expenses: MEPs' daily allowance covering hotels/food is worth €287 a day. TD's daily allowance is €61.53 and overnight allowance is €139.67.

Travel expenses: MEPs' travel allowance covers the price of an economy class weekly return aircraft ticket to Brussels or Strasbourg or other places in respect of special missions abroad. They also get up to €4,000 a year for other travel undertaken as part of their work.

A TD's allowance to cover travel between the Dáil and the constituency is a non-taxable annual payment of between €2,745 to €8,782.

Mileage expenses: MEPs are reimbursed with 0.73 cent a kilometre for the first 500 kilometres and 0.31 cent for the rest of the journey.

The current allowances for TDs are €1.16 a mile up to 4,000 miles and 0.54 cent when more than 4,001 miles. (1 mile = 1.609344 kilometres).

Office expenses: MEPs get a general expenditure allowance, which is primarily intended to defray cost for having an office in his/her member state. It is worth €48,624 a year.

They also get a parliamentary allowance, that enables them to hire staff, which is worth a maximum of €202,968 a year. (This allowance is the subject of the recent report on fraud.)

TDs can claim a maximum secretarial expense of €39,112 and telephone expenses worth about €8,050. They can get a once-off payment worth €8,888 to set up a constituency office and an annual payment worth €8,888 to fund it. They also get a miscellaneous allowance worth €5,482. Jamie Smyth

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times