Green Party Ministers John Gormley and Eamon Ryan and Minister of State Trevor Sargent are to hand over controversial pay increases, worth up to €25,000 to each of them, to the party's funds, it emerged last night.
Questioned last night, Mr Gormley, the party leader and Minister for the Environment, said the party would "be insisting" that the pay awards mandated by the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Service would go into the party's coffers.
"They're totally reliant on us. We don't accept corporate donations, so they're totally reliant on us. So that will continue," Mr Gormley told journalists last night in Leinster House, adding that some of the money would go to a climate change fund.
Last year, each of the then six Green Party deputies, including Dan Boyle, who now sits in the Senate, each donated €5,100 of their salaries to the party's funds, according to records lodged with the Standards in Public Offices Commission.
The decision may cause some irritation within Fianna Fáil, since Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has been insistent that any decision to refuse the money, or to delay its payment, would be mere tokenism.
Acknowledging public anger about the pay increases, Mr Gormley said the Green Party could use this money "to (a) finance the party and (b) finance a climate change fund".