THE TDs who lost their seats in the election will be eligible for a lump sum "termination allowance" and a sliding scale of severance payments to soften the blow.
Any TD with six months continuous membership of the Dail who loses his or her seat - and does not then become a member of the Seanad, the European Parliament, or take up a full time government job - will receive a lump sum equivalent to two months of the current Dail salary. At the current annual salary of £34,706, this would be around £5,800.
In addition, any member with at least three years' continuous service will qualify for monthly severance payments on a sliding scale. TDs with three years in the Dail will get one monthly payment and TDs with 14 years or more will get 12 monthly payments, with a pro rata number of payments for those in between. The first six of these payments will be paid at a rate of 75 per cent of monthly salary, and the second six at 50 per cent.
Thus Democratic Left's Mr Eric Byrne, who reentered the Dail in a by election three years ago, will get one payment equivalent to 75 per cent of his monthly Dail salary. Since only continuous Dail service counts towards the severance payment, his earlier period in the Dail before 1992 will not be taken into account.
The new Labour TDs who arrived in 1992 will get three monthly payments, also at 75 per cent of their final salary. Fine Gael's Mr Paddy Harte, who first entered the Dail in 1961, will get 12 monthly payments, the first six at 75 per cent and the second six at half his salary.
This scheme was brought in by Mr Bertie Ahern when he was Minister for Finance in the dying days of the last Fianna Fail Progressive Democrats government in November 1992. The casualties of that election were the first TDs to benefit.
It replaced an earlier pension scheme based on a TD's number of years in the Dail. Under this scheme there was no Dail pension or severance payment at all until eight years had been served. After that a TD's annual pension was paid at the rate of one fortieth of the final salary for every year served, subject to a maximum payment of two thirds of that salary.
This would mean that a TD who lost his or her seat in the 1989 election would have been paid around £580 per year for every year he or she had served in the Dail over eight years.