Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
£8MILLION IN SALARIES PAID AT STORMONT
MLAS’ wages revealed after collapse of Assembly
MORE than £8million in salaries has been paid to members of the suspended Assembly, Karen Bradley said yesterday.
The Secretary of State has cut the pay of legislators significantly after an independent report recommended the measure.
MLAS received a full-time salary from January 2017 to October this year even though the Assembly was not sitting and members were not passing legislation.
The £8.5million pay bill was disclosed by NIO officials during evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster.
North Down MP Lady Sylvia Hermon said: “We have taken evidence recently in this committee about education budgets being so over-stretched that there have been donations of toilet rolls to primary schools. It is absolutely shameful.”
Ms Bradley reminded the committee she recently cut MLAS’ pay from £49,500 to £35,888.
It will happen in two stages. The first cut of £7,425 will be followed by a further reduction of £6,187 in three months’ time.
Northern Ireland has been without an Executive since January 2017 after former powersharing partners the DUP and Sinn Fein fell out over the handling of a botched green energy scheme.
The pay cut was suggested last December.
Former Assembly chief executive Trevor Reaney recommended the reduction until an Executive is resurrected. Allowances for staff were not reduced.
MLAS continue to provide a constituency service and lobby civil servants on a range of issues. Repeated rounds of negotiations have failed to persuade Sinn Fein and the DUP to patch up their differences over powersharing.
Tensions between Northern Ireland’s two largest parties over Brexit have exacerbated divisions. Among suggestions to kick-start progress is the appointment of an independent mediator.
Talks led by the NIO failed amid trenchant criticism from Sinn Fein of No10.