Ministers on €130k salaries want us to pay their hotel bills

A GROUP of Fine Gael ju nior ministers want the taxpayer to pick up the tab for their hotel bills when the Dáil is sitting, even though they receive a salary of €129,854.

They told Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, in a private meeting, that there is an anomaly between them and ordinary TDs who can claim travel and subsistence allowances of up to €34,065 annually. However, TDs are on a salary of just under €95,000, meaning the junior ministers get about €35,000 more in their salary.

They say Dublin hotel costs are now running around €120 a night and they spend at least two nights in the capital every week the Dáil is sitting.

This group however can avail of a ministerial subsidy in the shape of a €6,500 annual tax credit towards acquiring a second home in Dublin. It has been availed of by former taoisigh Enda Kenny and Brian Cowen.

Mr Donohoe politely rejected the application from his colleagues and last night junior minister Seán Canney of the Independent Alliance said: ‘It is an honour and privilege for me to be in Government. There are lots of things unfair in life, and sometimes you just have to get on with it. I am very lucky that where I stay in Dublin is very reasonable.

‘The fact is we have a shortage of bedrooms in hotels and the law of supply and demand exists there.’

One minister of state told Mr Donohoe that his weekly costs for a hotel room in Dublin are close to €500, or more than €10,000 a year from his after-tax income.

The junior ministers who attended the meeting are understood to have agreed nothing could be done this side of a general election. Reported attendees, in alphabetical order, comprised Pat Breen of Clare, Ciarán Cannon of Galway East, Jim Daly of Cork South West, Michael D’Arcy and Paul Kehoe, both from Wexford, Seán Kyne of Galway West, Patrick O’Donovan of Limerick County and David Stanton from Cork East.