Sinn Féin ends f iction of pay cap of ‘average wage’ for their Dáil deputies
Party TDs are ‘expected’ to hand back €22,000 of their salaries
SINN Féin TDs give €22,000 of their annual €107,000 salary back to the State, party sources confirmed to the Irish Mail on Sunday.
Party TDs privately confirmed this week that they are ‘expected’ to hand back a ‘minimum’ of €22,000 of their Dáil salaries which would still leave them earning significantly more than the average industrial wage.
The sum returned is principally made up of increments and pay rises which have accrued to TDs since 2016.
One Sinn Féin TD told the MoS: ‘I have to hand back €22,000 a year to the Oireachtas, for sure. Yes, it makes things a little more difficult; many of us have children to support and could do with the extra money.
‘Maybe others hand back more, but that’s what I do.’
It is not possible to confirm if all of the party’s deputies hand back the same amount, but Sinn Féin TDs who spoke anonymously all confirmed they contributed €22,000.
Given the secrecy around Sinn Féin’s financing, it is not possible to confirm if the party continues to take TD expenses to boost coffers.
Revelations by this newspaper over a decade ago forced a Standards in Public Office (SIPO) inquiry into the practice of taking expenses from TDs, where they are supposed to be reimbursed for money spent in the course of their work.
In 2020, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald revealed she and her colleagues also handed over €2,500 of their salary back to the party to run local offices.
Two years earlier it was revealed that Dublin North-West TD and convicted terrorist bomber Dessie Ellis kept his then full €93,598 salary, despite the previously wellpublicised and long-standing Sinn Féin policy that elected members only take the average industrial wage, now around €47,000.
Oireachtas sources this weekend confirmed witnessing a Sinn Féin functionary handing over ‘bundles’ of documents at the Leinster House ‘one stop shop’ finance department which handles all payments to elected Oireachtas members.
According to sources, this indicates Sinn Féin TDs and senators have their deductions monitored, rather than voluntarily handing over ‘gifts’ from their salaries.
A source told the MoS: ‘I’ve seen bundles handed over, obviously nobody else but the Shinners hand back wages, but it appears they’re not doing it voluntarily. A commissar does collection and checking.
‘As we know, in the Red Army, the Commissar was more powerful than the officers, so anyone refusing to hand over the gift will be in trouble.’
Sinn Féin is notoriously secretive about its finances, partially due to a hangover from its IRA days, but also because of the unique status is occupies in Irish politics.
Being incorporated in both Ireland and the UK, Sinn Féin can lodge money raised in the US and other places in the UK and not be subject to Irish political funding legislation.
A former mechanic, Billy Hampton, who died in Wales unmarried with no children, left €3m to Sinn Féin in 2018 after making the party the main beneficiary of his will.
In 2011, the MoS interviewed former Sinn Féin TD Sandra McLellan in which she said the party took a large part of her expenses.
Sinn Féin TDs make no secret of their apparent enthusiasm for handing back additional pay rises that accrue to them. Some deputies post photographs of their gifting of periodic pay rises back to the State.
TDs who ‘gift’ the €22,000 back to the Oireachtas would be left with a salary of about €85,000 before unknown deductions. However, Sinn Féin TDs refused to discuss the treatment of their expenses.
One high-profile TD recently approached a minister inquiring about details of their pay.
The minister told the MoS: ‘He said that he wasn’t being presumptuous, but he was fierce interested in what I was earning, and [what] other levels of ministers earn.
‘They’re struggling, these fellas. And some women TDs in particular are under desperate pressure financially, and they’ll tell you it’s intensely galling to see senior party members living in big houses.’
A Sinn Féin spokesman said: ‘Sinn Féin TDs agreed collectively to forgo pay increases due under the Building Momentum Agreement and they did not accept pay increases due under it. The party has no role in relation to TDs expenses or salaries – they are solely a matter for individuals.’