€5k boost for TDS is a bit rich

THE disclosure that politicians have received a €5,000 pay rise will rightly anger other workers who have little or no pay increases in recent years.

This raise comes on top of the €5,000 increase they received this time last year and they are in line for even more taxpayers’ money in the coming months.

As it stands Dail Deputies are among the best paid politicians in Europe and when all the pay rises kick in their annual salaries will not be far off €100,000.

The politicians will claim they are entitled to the cash as this is a matter of pay restoration after the Financial Emergency Measures introduced in the wake of the crash.

It is certainly a case of the politicians looking after themselves as entire swathes of the public sector suffered similar wage cuts yet their pay has not been restored.

Indeed public sector workers have been forced to threaten strike action in a bid to regain what is rightly theirs.

When it comes to pay and conditions the politicians are a law unto themselves.

They have longer holidays than the country’s schoolchildren and will not return from their Easter break until April 16.

What is needed is for an outside body to carry out a total review of the huge salaries, expenses and payoffs being made to politicians and senior civil servants.