Having said all that, some are secure enough to admit that they enjoyed the "fat" and regarded it as compensation of a sort for the appalling lifestyle and the fall-out for the family. "I can buy nice clothes. I can afford to look after my family now, which I couldn't as a TD," says Niall Andrews. "I couldn't work out here for a TD's salary."
Joe McCartin, who has to negotiate the nightmarish journey from Leitrim to Europe every week, sums up the human cost: "I think you pay a tremendous price in social and family terms. I have literally gone home from Strasbourg, got a cup of tea and finished it before I had the courage to tell my wife that I had to go on to Donegal or Galway. I was as well off financially, before I came to Europe. The family business employed 300 people then and got into trouble because we were involved in politics and not spending enough time at it.
"Any shilling I was able to squeeze out of my job in expenses here went into returning the sort of support that my family would have had, had I stayed in business. I'd have immense sympathy for a young married person becoming an MEP. Certainly for anyone from the country, their family is finished."
He was 40 years old with two small boys and - fortunately, he would say - with a good, long-established marriage, when he first headed for Strasbourg. "I had no idea the amount of time this job would take. I didn't add it up. On our first night in this city, Richard Ryan started telling us where we'd have to be next week and the week after . . . And I went to bed in the Grand Hotel unable to sleep at the thought of what I'd taken on."
He recalls how his four-year-old used to get up at 6 a.m. on Mondays knowing his father would be leaving, and how the little boy would urge him to have another cup of tea, and another, and another, to keep him there a few minutes longer. At one time, the only way the boy could get to see him was by going along to a party conference. "When people talk about money in this job, I don't think they realise that they're talking about a job that no-one would do on the basis of a 40-hour week. Why would somebody remove themselves from their political base, their family and community - I don't even know the neighbours' children outside the church any more - for what the principal of a four-teacher school earns in a 30-hour week?"
One of Joe McCartin's greatest political challenges is what he calls "the pull between minding the constituency and keeping an eye on Europe". After returning from Brussels the previous weekend, his itinerary had taken in events, conventions and funerals ranging from Jordanstown College across the border, south to counties Sligo, Roscommon, Cavan and Leitrim. His wife does a lot of the driving. "I have to get the vote of eight counties. You spend your time running, showing all comers they'll have to do the same."
Pat the Cope Gallagher's constituency diary and "to do" list forms a similar pattern. Medical cards, roads, social welfare problems . . . In the eyes of his constituents, he says, he is "still a county councillor". Out of 53,500 votes last time out, he got 54 per cent of them in Donegal. "You don't get a vote like that because you're doing work in Europe."
John Cushnahan's beat takes in both Tramore and Dingle. "I represent 13 Dail constituencies," he says, "and they each expect of me what they expect of their local deputy." Alan Gillis has already clocked up 25,000 miles on a year-old car which sits at the airport four days a week.
Back in Brussels, physical conditions have improved in recent years. Behind the vast, bland public spaces resembling a series of airport departure lounges are brighter, more spacious offices. But it's no palace. Ready for the new class of 1999 in July will be the new £350-million Strasbourg parliament building reached by a covered footbridge crossing the river, staggering in scale and a vision of glass, airiness and light. Enormous expanses of different woods line the interior and, far below, overlapping slates line the floor of the vast atrium, from which climbing plants, nourished by water rippling over the slate, rush towards the light. Near the 700-seat debating chamber (which, surprisingly, has no natural light but has desks clothed in deep blue velveteen), sprout futuristic, leather-covered conversation "cones", flaring up maybe 20 feet, to accommodate Members' private exchanges with colleagues or journalists. By violent contrast, the baffling expanse of floral carpet in the nearby bar will have many reaching for similes or sick-bags.
Whatever the building's attractions, no Irish MEP wants it. Ask them what the greatest irritant in their lifestyle is, and chances are the answer will be "Strasbourg". Add to that, the typically French phenomenon that behind this breathtaking vision - which will doubtless call forth more "gravy train" headlines when it opens - lurk private offices even smaller than the existing ones, and which Members will have to share with any assistants who travel with them. The extra flights, the inconvenience, the sheer waste of time and money (£80 million a year to shuttle personnel and tons of documents back and forth to Brussels; £2.5 million a month to rent the new building for use just 60 days a year), add up to a stupendous French folly and further misery for MEPs.
From where most reasonable people sit, this is a dog's life. The extent to which our MEPs have maintained their appetite for the job is surprising. The cynics will probably put it down to the financial rewards. But if that's the case, where are the young pretenders knocking the party doors down for a nomination?
In the main paper on Tuesday: How the MEPs view their own and the Parliament's achievements