When the Dail resumes today, it will have sat for just 58 days this year -equivalent to about 1.5 days per week. As a benchmark, UK MPs are paid about the same as TDs notwithstanding much larger effective constituencies (66,000 versus 18,000) and Parliament sitting for 150+ days a year versus 90+ for the Dail. Based on the latter, UK MPs offer seventy percent better value than TDs.
In any other context, this divergence would be viewed as a rip off. To resolve these matters, the Dail should be obliged to sit for four full days a week and forty weeks a year following the next election. If this doesn't suit prospective TDs, then they shouldn't stand for election.
This letter was published in the Irish Times on the 1st October 2005.
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