Isn't their pay linked to senior civil servants? Like Secretarys or a Principal officer?
I do remember when they got a €38,000 raise which was put off, that other sectors got raises too. Judges for example and judges definitly deserve to be well paid.
Maybe hitting out at a TD's salary is an easy option where there other people working for the state that are far more overpaid for what they do.
A civil servants job can finish at 5pm and rightly so if that's what they signed up to.
A TD's job never finishes and they are responsible for everything from complex legislation to hassling the council to fix the potholes or whetever else people want them to do
Reasonably sure the deferred rise referred was for ministers not TDs.€38,000 raise which was put off
I doubt voting which ever way the party whip wants them to vote can be be termed being responsible for complex legislation. It certainly doesn't seem to be the case that when there's a problem with legislation you see the too many putting a hand up and saying the problem paragraph was written by his good self.they are responsible for everything from complex legislation
I doubt voting which ever way the party whip wants them to vote can be be termed being responsible for complex legislation.
Quite a few TDs have difficulty understanding legislation or even bothering to read it.
Given the breadth of areas covered in the Dail, it's not a huge surprise or hugely unreasonable that the relevant spokespersons are the cogent speakers on any given topic.Agree completely, have you ever heard a Second Stage debate for a Bill? Apart from the opposition spokeperson who are reasonably cogent, the rest invariably waffle on about constituency issues which are not really the subject of the legislation.
It's not fair to blame the TDs for focusing on the constituency issues. Blame the voters who vote on the basis of constituency issues instead.
On the TDs salary, I wouldn't take the job for twice the €100k - no job security, no private time, no private life, everybody owning a piece of you. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
On the TDs salary, I wouldn't take the job for twice the €100k - no job security, no private time, no private life, everybody owning a piece of you. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
It's a bit of a chicken and egg one, I guessIt could be argued that the TDs encourage this parochial tendancy.
Fair point.Good pension though... and they don't need to work 40 years to get it.
I think you'd need to consider cost of living etc in any international comparison.But thats the same for English MP's and I presume politicians in every country. Ours are still very highly paid. You can't have politicans spouting off about Ireland's lack of competiveness compared to other countries when their own pay and conditions do not stand up to scutiny when compared internationally.
Sounds like a bit of a tabloid story. You'd need to consider inflation rates over the retirement period to do any kind of sensible comparison.I remember reading recently that senior civil servants who retired a few years ago are now earning more through their pensions that what they were earning when they retired due to various pay awards. This defies logic and for me is a utter disgrace.
Not really. Councillors aren't 'junior TDs' - they have a specific set of responsibility on local authority issues, e.g. planning, housing, traffic, libraries. But they have nothing to do with many public service areas.We now pay councillors who are supposed to do this type of work!
Until a new party came along doing constituency work, and the suckers voted in the new party. Then we'd be back to square one.If every party decided in the morning that TD's would stop doing constituency work, then it would stop at that level!
True, but I think you are underestimating the complexity involved in putting together legislation.Does each TD not have a political researcher to do the research for them, paid by the taxpayer? We only pass about 40 pieces of leigislation a year and a number of those are recurrent pieces, e.g. Finance Bill, Social Welfare Bill
I'm not looking for sympathy for TDs. I'm just trying to address the myth of it being a cushy number. The solution to the constituency crap lies in the hands of the constituents. Most people think it's a load of constituency crap, until it happens to be THEIR planning problem, or THEIR granny in hospital.One would presume as most TD were in a political party that they are well aware of the demands of the job before they start? The reality is that we have TD's, councillors and political researchers who are all doing the same constituency crap using up valuable resources that could be put into services..
I'm not looking for sympathy for TDs. I'm just trying to address the myth of it being a cushy number. The solution to the constituency crap lies in the hands of the constituents. Most people think it's a load of constituency crap, until it happens to be THEIR planning problem, or THEIR granny in hospital.
A TD's job never finishes and they are responsible for everything from complex legislation to hassling the council to fix the potholes or whetever else people want them to do
In my opinion, TDs contituency work has very little influence. The majority of it is giving people the type of advice that they could get anyway from citizens advice centres or other State services, but less accurate as it is third hand and the TD is usually not an expert. TDs also get a lot of currency out of getting stuff for people that they are legally entitled to anyway and would have gotten if they'd asked for it themselves.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?