Two Northern Ireland MP’s have topped the list for biggest scroungers, sorry ‘expense claimants’ in Westminster. Ian Paisley Jnr MP claimed £232,042.33 in expenses alone last year while his DUP chum Jim Shannon MP was paid £220,198.15 last year alone on top of his £66,396 salary!
The total sum given to MP’s in expenses actually rose by 7% last year to £98m.
- Gregory Campbell (DUP) £130,352.47
Nigel Dodds (DUP) £135,306.12
Pat Doherty (Sinn Fein) £136,707.87
Jeffrey Donaldson (DUP) £176,952.12
Mark Durkan (SDLP) £138,005.48
Michelle Gildernew (Sinn Fein) £95,941.58
Naomi Long (Alliance) £159,265.82
Sylvia Hermon (Independent) £150,923.46
Paul Maskey (Sinn Fein) £107,860.62
William McCrea (DUP) £186,462.41
Alasdair McDonnell (SDLP) £172,314.70
Martin McGuinness (Sinn Fein) £64,895.06
Conor Murphy (Sinn Fein) £127,302.08
Ian Paisley (DUP) £232,042.33
Margaret Ritchie (SDLP) £179,724.73
Jim Shannon (DUP) £220,198.15
David Simpson (DUP) £162,717.48
Sammy Wilson (DUP) £149,101.21
McDevitt gone – more should follow him!
The resignation of SDLP MLA Conall McDevitt was followed by gushing tributes from his fellow politicians from across all the parties. An ‘honourable’ politician and a huge loss to politics is all we heard for days. There was in fact hardly any condemnation of his refusal to register his business interests while serving as an MLA. He paid over £14,000 of public money to a ‘consulting company’ called JM Consulting which happened to be owned by none other than his wife – Joanne Murphy, an academic at Queens University Belfast and had also received money from Weber Shandwick – a public relations company where he was managing director. But McDevitt certainly isn’t the only one at it. All the main parties have close links to wealthy business people. The fact that they refuse to disclose where they get their donations from speaks volumes.
£7.2 million expenses in one year
The combined sum paid to politicians in Stormont (from April 2012 to April 2013) has come to £7.2 million. The largest expense payment was claimed by Pat Ramsey of the SDLP who received over £82,000! Combined with his salary, Ramsey was paid more than £120,000 in 2013!
