Kathy Sheridan: MEPs' unvouched €55,000 expenses symbolise system of entitlement

It may be time to mute our excitement about the European elections.

Aside from the thrilling, daily reveal of fresh Brussels aspirants – such as Peter “Voice for the people of Ireland” Casey, who will skate it according to himself – there is much to be considered.

As the presidential election demonstrated, even the most ardent voter can turn a bit sour when confronted with the costs of sustaining any public office that does not contain Nelson Mandela.

When pay enters the equation – as it surely will between now and May 24th – the scrutiny comes edged with sourness

Part of the problem is the difficulty of measuring the worth of an MEP when we know so little of their day-to-day lives. For example, all that travel must be a terrible nuisance at times but is it strictly necessary?

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Explaining his decision not to stand for the next election after 25 years an MEP, Brian Crowley said the problem was that long-term illness would preclude him from running an energetic, personalised campaign.

Work remotely from hospital

The fact that he hasn’t attended the European Parliament for five years due to illness is not an issue, apparently; he has been able to work remotely from hospital and his Cork home base. (The fact that he also managed to get expelled by Fianna Fáil for defecting to the European Parliament’s ECR group, the home of Alternative for Germany among other far-right charmers, is for another day) .

According to the European Parliament website, MEPs’ daily workload “is split between work for their constituents back in their home country, their work in the committees, the debates in their political groups as well as debates and votes in the plenary”. So travel is probably integral to the job.

Beyond that, the problem for a bright, hard-working MEP as opposed to a stunt-staging show-pony is how to prove your effectiveness to the voters at home.

When pay enters the equation – as it surely will between now and May 24th – the scrutiny comes edged with sourness.

Even one-term wonders get a generous cash cushion on departure; a “transitional allowance” of a month’s salary (€8,757.70) for each year served, capped at two years. Departing old-timers will do nicely. This year they include Brexit boyos such as Nigel Farage and Daniel Hannan – Eurosceptics since 1999 but not too sceptical to grab the European citizens’ generous parachute worth €172,000 apiece in their case.

To the battered citizens of a union tottering back towards the economic light ‑ or not, depending on who is talking - it is baffling

Just a recap of those entitlements: gross salaries of €8,757.70 a month (subject to EU and member state tax), pension of 3.5 per cent per year of salary (capped at 70 per cent of salary) which kicks in at 63; a golden parachute as described, worth up to €210,185; two-thirds of medical expenses reimbursable; business class travel or equivalent for attending parliament meetings etc (on production of receipts) and an additional €4,454 for travel outside their home country.

Plus a budget of €24,526 a month for personal assistants (none of which is paid to the MEPs themselves) to keep the home and away offices running smoothly.

Add to that the €320 daily allowance (to cover accommodation, meals etc) on signing the daily attendance register, worth more than €40,000 a year.

And to finish, the really controversial cherry on the cake: the “general expenditure allowance” of €4,513 per month, or €55,000 a year.

This is to fund a constituency office (bearing in mind that offices are supplied in both Brussels and Strasbourg). The problem is that it requires neither receipts nor accounting of any kind. It runs entirely on trust.

Battered citizen

To the battered citizens of a union tottering back towards the economic light - or not, depending on who is talking – it is baffling. A 2015 investigation by 28 European journalists found among other things, that many MEPs were using the money to pay their national parties for rent thus improperly subsidising those parties, that – surprise surprise – many did not have offices at all, and that few returned any unspent balance.

“There is,” Marian Harkin told our Patrick Smyth last September, with serious diplomatic understatement, “ample opportunity to mis-spend.”

Last year, the journalists’ case for greater accountability on MEPs’ expenses was rejected by both the European Parliament’s governing body and the EU court of justice. Breach of MEPs’ privacy trumped public accountability, the court found. How any MEP’s privacy could be breached by documents relating to their activities solely as public representatives is a mystery.

In terms of the entire EU budget, these payments are a minuscule drop in the ocean. But that unvouched €55,000 is symbolic of a whole system of entitlement. For context, the average annual gross pay in nearly half the EU member states is below €20,000 a year. In Ireland, it’s about €39,000 – and still €16,000 less than the €55,000 MEPs receive to fund a constituency office.

At a time when the EU is under microscopic scrutiny, it’s a spectacular and corrosive own goal.

Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy described the European Parliament governing body’s decision on transparency as “scandalous” and “defying logic”, making the obvious point that MEPs’ credibility in demanding accountability on EU spending may be undermined by their own practices.

No doubt, when asked, he and every MEP supports the idea of transparency and proper vouching systems. The problem is the system, you see. But no-one has to wait for EU systems to catch up.

MEPs can do it all by themselves, voluntarily. Let’s see how many manage to do it by May 24th.