We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
A PETITION HAS been launched calling for political salaries to be benchmarked against equivalent “real-world” jobs.
Members of the Real Pay campaign say that the measures – which would mean a significant pay reduction for ministers and TDs – would save €10.7 million annually.
They are necessary if the Government is to have the “moral authority” to introduce austerity measures, campaigners said.
Under the proposals, cabinet ministers would see their annual salary reduced from €170,000 to €120,000. This is equivalent to results for company managing directors in salary surveys, the campaign said.
Junior ministers would see their pay cut by €50,000 – from €130,000 to €80,000 – while TDs’ wages would be reduced from €92,000 to €60,000. This is the equivalent of a “senior middle management” pay level, the campaign said.
There would also be cuts in the expenses regime to bring it more into line with the private sector.
“Real Pay is about politicians showing leadership and gaining moral authority even more than it is about saving money,” said Aaron McKenna, organiser of the petition.
If politicians are to have the moral authority to tell new teachers to take a pay cut; or disabled children to do with less care; or tax payers to hand over more then they must be the first in line and lead by example.
Currently political salaries in Ireland are higher than many other European countries, despite significant cuts in recent years. Taoiseach Enda Kenny is paid €200,000 annually – more than UK prime minister David Cameron.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Proper order
Where do I sign it?
Great idea will never happen unfortunately
Agree. However, it is a start & at least the pandora’s box has been opened. They have lost all moral authority & need bringing down a peg or two. Be interesting to see how this pans out.
To think that waste of space Brian Hayes is on €130,000 a year, just to be an arrogant little twat!
*Wishes there was a ‘Like’ button for this*
He was voted in. You can’t blame him. If you elect a smart assed twat, you can’t expect him to be any different.
Blame the dumb asses voters
About time, but hey they’ll always find ways to boost their salary.
Committees for this and that shite so they can fleece us for more god dam money.
Self serving bunch of W**K**S
With the amount of people emigrating again displaying that Irish Politicians do not need the voters then 120,000 per year is way too much.
If they are paid intern-ship wages then they might be realistic.
Please, please, please make this happen. After the Mahon report this would be the perfect gesture from the political elite to gain back the trust of the electorate, do this and people might be willing to pay household charges. Don’t do it and don’t expect us to take any more cuts.
No member of the cabinet should be receiving anything on top of their ordinary TD salary, until we see two consecutive quarters of GNP growth.
When they have the country doing well again, then it can be reviewed.
Well said Floodzie. Relate their salaries to the growth of the country
This runs into a problem at Taoiseach level- CEO of a company with a pretty phenomenal revenue albeit a very high operating loss- like general motors except their CEO is paid $9,000,000. I am not for one second suggesting Enda get this but you cant compare them to the real world as they don’t live there.
If this happens before Friday, I would even pay the household charge. Realistically , chances of either are slim.
Where do I sign this petition!!!!!
Thanks for that link, Keith. Will go through it later & share this on my FB. I think all should do the same. The more the merrier.
Aarum, is right unfortunately. We don’t do good ideas in this country. This will be let whither on the vine, rest assured.
I’m open to correction but don’t all TDs and Ministers have expenses over and above the salaries? Ministers also have non contributory pensions as well as TD salaries, plus income from their Civilian jobs where applicable …
If they want to serve their countries let them do it for expenses only …
This should happen, unfortunately the pay scales suggested are still way too much. TDs should be on the average industrial wage. There is no evidence to suggest their level of experience or qualifications are remotely close to that of the “real world”. Ministers should be on 40K and the Taoiseach on 45K. The Dail should reduce in numbers to only 2 TDs per county and every county represented (none of this Cavan-Monaghan or Laois-Offaly crap). They should retain one of the apartment blocks around dublin that is empty and this would serve for TDs to stay there for Dail business and they give in vouched receipts for standard class public transport as they expect the public to travel this way. This way we might get some genuine people sitting in those seats. There is no way wages should be remotely close to that of UK MPs
That’s unrealistic Paddy, the suggestion being put forward will more than likely have no chance of being implemented as it is but it may at least have some chance of being considered.
Spot on Paddy, well said.
2 TD’s per county is a good idea too and cuts out a lot of those ridiculous dublin constituencies that no-one could point to on a map even!
So Paddy, the county with a 1/4 of the Irish population will only have 2 representatives in the Dáil? Get real.
Country people living in Dublin should still vote in their own counties – no way actual proper dubliners make up1/4 of the population. Half of them are probably junkies who wouldn’t vote anyway and support shamrock rovers. There’ll be less Bertie Ahern types elected too if we reduce the dublin TD numbers for a start anyway. The D4 establishment has ruled the free state for long enough! Revolution time people!
There isn’t a snowballs chance of this happening. The environment of entitlement in Leinster House/Government has been there since the foundation of The State.
All you have to do is look at episodes of ‘Reeling in The Years’ from the 60′s to see the proof.
Politicians in this country of ours have had difficulty with the real world for years and there’s no way they’re gonna change that now.
Sure as Bertie, the great swindler himself once pointed out…he might have been getting paid more than the pres of America, but sure-didn’t have the White House.
He had Farmleigh, and he didn’t have 300million tax payers
Can all the self-fullfilling prophets take two mins and sign the bloody petition before shooting it down? Unbelievable some of ye.
They should all take the average industrial wage like sinn fein do
like Sinn Fein do? How many times does this have to be explained….
Sinn Fein take exactly the same as all other TD!!!!!!!!!!
They choose to take av ind wage from this but they give the rest to the Sinn Fein party
bottom line they cost us, the tax payer, the exact same as all other TDs
Sinn Féin don’t take the industrial wage. They give most of it to Sinn Féin, which makes no difference to the taxpayer. The taxpayer is still getting robbed, whether they use it to buy groceries or fund their respective parties is irrelevant to the taxpayer.
Well said Geraldine & Cillian. I wish many would start to see through their crap. Anyway – re this thread – this is a good start. Let’s hope it goes somewhere.
Well at least as individuals they’re not earning any more than ordinary workers and the rest of it is going towards helping build up local communities. cynics, gombeens and blueshirts the lot of ye
Paddy BeBob – people are entitled to air their opinions however good, bad &/or indifferent. Just as u are entitled to air yours. I’ll defend your right to do so. Is name calling really necessary when u come across people who don’t agree with u ? We all will neverf agree & it is good to agree to disagee. Name calling, tho’ ?
Bloody keyboard – should read “…. disagree”.
Journal, you should probably amend the description you have with this link on your FB page. The nurse/Garda/teacher bashing comments have already started there. It’s not really anything to do with what this petition is proposing.
What Ruairí said.
I’m not sure that actually works out the way people tend to imagine. If you benchmark Enda Kenny against the CEO of a corporation with the same number of employees and cabinet ministers against board directors of such companies… wouldn’t you effectively wind up giving them all a pay rise?
They need to compare the qualifications of those they’re benchmarking against too. There’s nothing stopping someone who failed foundation level maths and has never studied business becoming the Minister for Finance at the moment. It would be interesting to see how other countries appoint ministers.
the look on his face says it all. they don’t do enough to justify there salary. they need a slap of reality .there in power to care for the country not themselves and they have the cheek to rip us off and want paying for it.
So far, this government is earning their pay. Makes me slightly proud to be irish that we’re getting some grain of respect back internationally.
To those people on the average industrial wage who are complaining about TD salaries, perhaps they should have run for election themselves? Or better still, they should have been more ambitious and planned their career better. More high calibre people is what this country needs not a bunch of negative-minded loudmouthed underachieving little socialists trying to dismantle our econony from within.
It was going well enough until we got to TDs… TDs would get €60,000? Your benchmark here is a bit off if we consider a Cllr has to be elected (presumably like aaron intends to be judging by his website!) as a community leader in the first instance – this is a closer benchmark to “senior middle management” than a TD.
€60,000 for a TD would also really open the door for corruption etc, I’d worry. For the Ministers/Junior Ministers? Yeah, absolutely, think that’s a great benchmark. €60,000 for a TD would be wrong, without full public sector reform. They would be behind 60% of public sector workers, and most of the remainder would be on increments and would finish their careers ahead of a TD. I presume Aaron will be calling for Croke Park to be abolished?
If he is, there may be merit in his point. Otherwise? Pointless stunt.
Keith, I know it has no chance because of the selfish and assumption of importance TDs have on themselves but this would be equitable in our situation is all I’m saying.
There’s way too many Dublin TD’s. I turn on the news or any current affairs and it’s always Dublin representatives on – What’s up with that? 2 x 26 = 52 TD’s. Perfect.
Real world salary! I’d like to add two more; 1. Real world understanding of modern Ireland and the challenges most of the population face 2. Real world experience and understanding in sectors relevant to their roles.
100,000 euro max and ban expences altogether,cars , travel expences etc.let them live in the real world. see if they will be impleminting austerity measures then.look at the dail on tele, half of them are asleep or absent, terminate 50 per cent of them,and suspend the rest of them for double jobbing. let the terminated ones wait 6 weeks for their dole.
Dream on girls – this will never happen !
Everybody should subscribe to this and the civil service should also be included.
Conor. The job of a TD is to represent his/her constituents on a national level. I agree that Population is a factor but it can not prevent people from being represented and therefore should not be the ultimate factor. Fact of matter is that the needs of one child or one sick person in Donegal or Mayo is the exact same individual need for each child or each sick person in Dublin and by leaving population as the factor is exactly why inequality is rife in out society and why these people are not being represented. It is also the reason why over centralisation has happened around Dublin. TDs need to be moved more towards national issues and away from local ones which should be concentrated on council representatives. So yes, 2 TDs for each county regardless of size. And Conor I am “real”
2 TDs per 100,000 population makes more sense. And get rid of the 1600 useless councillors; i’ve no idea what they even do. Plan the cutting of grass verges, upkeep of parks and roadsweeper routes? They weren’t even justified when they looked after the bin collection, and now they aren’t even overseeing that.
have your say