FROM THE ARCHIVES:TDs' pay is a perennial issue. In 1944 they received £480 a year, exempt from income tax, when Independent deputy James Dillon put down a motion calling for a committee to set expenses for them instead of a salary. The debate provided this front page report.
THE SUGGESTION that deputies were overpaid for their services was denounced in the Dáil last night as part of a campaign of calumny, when the debate on Mr. Dillon’s motion to set up a Committee of the House to inquire into the question of deputies’ expenses and allowances took place.
Mr. R[ichard] Anthony (Ind.) said for some years Ministers and deputies had been subjected to a campaign of calumny and abuse which appealed to the meanest and vilest traits in the character of the people.
He welcomed a committee which would investigate the number of salaries held by deputies, and whether they had shares in co-operative societies, which had in some cases branched into chain stores, without paying income tax.
Mr. P. J. Cogan (Farmers) said Mr. Dillon’s motion bore no relation whatever to that put forward by his party [it had proposed to abolish the tax exemption for TDs], which sought to remove a glaring cause for complaint against deputies.
Dr. [T. F.] O’Higgins [Fine Gael] said it was entirely unworthy and un-Irish that the first challenge to the democratic principle of paying parliamentary allowances should come from people who claimed to represent the middle-class farmers.
The motion, he held, should be supported, if for no other reason than to kill the despicable kind of direct and indirect propaganda that was degrading the great institution of the State, lowering public representatives’ status, and sabotaging and sapping the very foundations of the State.
Stating he would not support the motion, Mr. M. J. Keyes (Lab.) said he did not believe the setting up of the proposed committee would end the talk that was going on, and there always would be people outside ready to slander them.
Mr. S. T. O’Kelly, Minister for Finance, said he was largely in agreement with what Deputy Dillon had said, but he did not propose to accept the motion. The mover had the best intentions, with a desire to put an end to the talk that had gone on too long, and which had not added respect for members of the Dáil.
He agreed with the deputy it would be a good thing naturally that this talk would end. They had had too much of it, but they would not end it by this motion.
He thought it right and proper that all reasonable expenses should be allowed. Anyone who had five years’ experience of that House would know the amount he got would be poor salary for a working man. Many deputies were definitely poorer because of their membership of the Dáil.
Mr. M[ichael] Donnellan (Farmers) said the motion was designed for the one purpose of trying to discredit the Clann na Talmhan [farmers] Party and put it in a false position.
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