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THE COST TO the tax-payer of funding the salaries of all TDs and senators in Leinster House last year increased by 4.5% to €19.4 million.
That’s according to the 2018 annual report of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission where the total gross bill for all Oireachtas activities in 2018 totalled €134.35 million.
The spend represents a €21.66 million – or 19% – increase on the €112.68 million spend for 2017.
The largest contributor to the increased spend was a €22.7 million spend on office equipment and external IT services – the €22.7 million spend represents an €8.1 million overspend on the €14.63 million allocated under that heading at the start of 2018.
A note attached to the accounts states that the “variation” relates to approved additional expenditure for digital transformation and modernisation projects and the renewal of software licences for three years.
The annual report shows that the cost of funding the 158 members of the Dáil last year totalled €43.69 million. This was made up of:
The cost of funding the members of the Seanad last year totalled €9.1m and this was made up of:
Fraud
The accounts also confirm that the Gardaí are currently investigating one case of alleged fraud in relation to a salary incremental claim over a period of 18 months.
The note states that “there is insufficient information available to categorise the incident or provide a financial estimate while investigations are ongoing”.
It adds: “The service will continue to make every effort to recover exchequer funds where fraud or irregularities have occurred.”
Dáil bar
The accounts also disclose that profits at the Dáil bars and restaurants last year declined by 7% from €139,047 to €128,224.
The drop in profits came in spite of revenues at the Oireachtas’ catering and bar services increasing by €51,253 from €1.25 million to €1.3 million.
The catering and bar services incurred €766,519 in cost of sales resulting in a gross profit of €535,192 and expenses of €406,978 - resulting in a profit of €128,224.
Staff costs funded by Oireachtas Commission for the Dáil bars and restaurants last year totalled €1.67 million.
The Oireachtas last year spent €547,000 on legal costs in respect of claims against it. In total, nine cases were brought, with six cases brought by staff members and three by members of the public.
The staff costs at the House of the Oireachtas Service increased by 9.5% to €31.22 million with the number of staff employed increasing from 546 to 564.
The accounts disclose that the Commission identified 42 individuals with payroll overpayments totalling €35,500, which included 27 individuals where €15,964 has been fully repaid.
For five individuals owing €7,535, recovery arrangements are in place, while 10 owe €12,001 and there are no recovery arrangements in place.
The parliamentary printing bill totalled €614,000 – almost half of the €1.17 million budgeted for – a note attached to the accounts states that the €563,000 underspend arose due to a lower than anticipated demand for printing and a delay in the production of bound volumes.
Library and research services totalled €651,000 while public relations and communications costs totalled €254,000.
The cost of televising proceedings at the Dáil and Seanad and other services during the year totalled €4.86 million.
The cost of funding the pension scheme for past Oireachtas members last year totalled €11.7 million.
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A time to”reflect on your faith”?…..if people really did reflect on their faith, they’d give that up too!
Gave up on my “faith” when I reached the age if reason. I was a bit slow as a 9 year old
Comment of the week!
Iam going to stop procrastinating, not this lent but the one after maybe.
After spending 40 days starving to near death in the blistering inhospitable desert. . . jesus invented the easter egg as he flew on his magical flying donkey back to bethlahem to avoid the life after death he made up on another one of his crazy adventures
Hey it’s in the bible!!
Well then it must be true.
Praise jeebus !!
Who doesn’t love a good easter egg making zombie jew man!
http://explosm.net/comics/502/, that is all :-)
Christianity espouses that one should “love thy neighbour”. We’re not in the business of mocking you or your disbelief. We may not agree with you but we must try to love you. That’s not always easy, but that’s the challenge of being a Christian.
How about, for Lent, you try being a bit more tolerant and less dismissive of those who do believe in God? If you don’t it’s no big deal. Christianity was born out of persecution. It thrives when it is among the poorest, the weakest, the most marginalised. It is by giving that we receive, after all.
Be careful now. Don’t forget Ireland’s blasphemy laws
Brian – “Happy those who seize your children and smash them against a rock.” Psalms 137:9
Yep, a whole lot of love going on there!
Brian, where was the intolerance? It was an accurate and humourous comic strip pointing out that there are none of the lent/easter practices in the bible, but Christians have decided to adapt these. If anything it only mocks the comment by the priest in the article who accuses those who give up something as “jumping on the christian bandwagon”, whereas it is the opposite – he is jumping on the tradition bandwagon.
I do hope you show the same level of tolerance ensuring that the church are not forcing ashes on (usually very young) children’s heads in schools today, and then by fasting for 40 days and 40 nights *without food and water* (Exodus 34:28), or do as Jesus did (Matthew 4:1) and visit somewhere where you are likely to be tempted; like a pub, pornhub or a country funeral (free fags!) for the next 40 days.
PS: 40 days from now is the Monday *before* Good Friday. Just saying, you don’t need to wait until Sunday for the Easter eggs if you follow the bible – they are two different parables.
Think I’ll give up reading all the Journal comments.
Do it for Crumlin Children’s Hospital :) http://www.giveitup.ie We’ve a swear jar in work and I’m giving up fast food.
Asked my wife to save the last pancake as I fancied it for breakfast this morning but she said no as its lent – who the hell would want to borrow a pancake….
Lent is a time to sacrifice something you like…. It’s not a slimming opportunity….
What the point of sacrificing something you like? I don’t get it
Desert heat combined with lack of food and water could very easily induce hallucinations due to the physiological effects of dehydration and or sunstroke Anyone of us could converse with the devil if in those circumstances.
It’s cultural… Once a Catholic always a Catholic.
As usual it’s a mixture of cultures – fat Tuesday and carnival were originally Greco-roman days of indulgence before a new harvest period, while ash Wednesday came from rubbing ash on foreheads for Odin’s protection in Norse mythology. Giving up “something/anything” is a recent phenomenon, and Donegal Tuesday is distinctively Irish. Any catholic claim is simply a reinvention to link pagan traditions to biblical stories. The key is in when it occurs – every lent/Easter (a Germanic tradition) is tied into the phases of the moon, a bit animistic for a church that has everything else on specific days?
Thou shalt wear a mark on the forehead without washing it and fast for 40 days and nights.
Except for the Feast of St Patrick’s, on the which occasion thou shalt eat confectionary and consume to excess to make up for the previous few weeks.
I am giving up the past tense for lend.
sure tis good craic torturing yourself for a few weeks
It’s called brainwashing
For many Catholics, it means prayer, penance and fasting?
In my experience growing up as a catholic it means:
- wearing a “holier than thou” smudge on the forehead for a day or two until the dirt forces a wash;
- exactly ZERO additional mass visits until Holy Week itself.
- stupid pressure from school to give up something for a few days until the whole thing is forgotten.
- no prayers.
It’s really just a vehicle for apparently pious celibate old men to preach to the downtrodden.
I guess you just weren’t doing it right.
I played the guitar when I was a young teenager, insofar as I owned a guitar, I went occasionally to guitar lessons (although I never practiced at home). I did like the looks I got from the girls as I carried the guitar around, but that would wain after I figured learning guitar was boring and it hurt my fingers, it was painful.
Looking back now, if I stuck with it and practiced regularly and properly, I may have gotten a lot more out of it than the amount of effort put in.
I suppose it’s never too late to try again.
Lent,from the beginning I gave up my “imaginary friend”,was the time of giving to charity.Nothing more.
“If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives.” (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)”
Another great line from the bible.Hmm…
I gave up giving up stuff.
Long term effects of brainwashing in schools with patronage.
I never did lent as a child, family aren’t religious, but I do it now with the cousins &a siblings and we all place bets on how long we last… Very charitable so we are ;-)
I counted exactly ONE grey haired old lady with a smudge on her forehead in town this morning on my way into work.
Still flying the flag.
Well done.
I wonder has Bertie got the ashes today? When he was Taoiseach he used to make a point of having the contents of the Pigeon House chimneys plastered all over his mush on Ash Wednesday.
He has much more to be penitent about today.
It’s fine to sacrifice something meaningful as long as you pass it on to someone who needs it , religious or not lent is a time to reflect and maybe pay it forward , if you don’t want to do it at this time time of year because of the religious attachment do it some other time, I’m not religious but I wouldn’t mock anyone who makes the effort to be less selfish for 40 days .
Fasting cleanses the body
Farting is more productive than fasting!
Same reason they christen their kids. They’re spas and cowards.
Because people are idiots
“A Catholic Communications spokesperson said that while they have no problem with people who want to “piggyback on an original Christian idea in a respectful way”, the Lenten period is supposed to be about reflecting on faith.”
Lent comes from an Anglo Saxon tradition..Lenctentid or in English the month when the days start to get longer. There are no original Christian ideas the same way there are no original ideas in any religion.
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