Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I believe that has been damaging. Mr. Coughlan mentioned the view of politics. I would be slightly critical of how payments are issued to us and the same applies to Senators. It operates as follows. Based on the distance from Leinster House and if a Member travels his or her required amount per annum, his or her payment is divided into 12 equal instalments and he or she gets it by electronic payment at the end of each month. We had a controversy in the month of August when many Deputies were not here. Given how the Houses of the Oireachtas Service processes the payments, the public understandably came to the conclusion that Deputies were claiming and were being paid travel expenses to and from the Dáil when many Deputies did not travel. That system of payment was damaging to the body politic.

At the end of each month the Houses of the Oireachtas Service knows how many times we clocked in during the month. Given that it is in the service's computerised system it would not be too complicated to issue the cheque as follows. If I travel to Leinster House six times one month, 22 times the next month and seven times the following month, I would get paid for that. It should not be an administrative burden. I do not need to submit documentation - it is all on the electronic fob. During months when the Dáil is in recess and over the Christmas period, when Members would not be travelling to and from Leinster House, we would avoid cheques being sent to Members for what the public rightly believe is for travel to and from Leinster House. Instead of taking the handy administrative procedure of dividing the annual amount by 12 monthly payments, the service should pay it on the amount of travel undertaken and have it reflected monthly. Then we might find a number of visits during the months of March, April and May and a lower amount of visits in July and August. The payments to us would then reflect our attendance here, as they should. Treating it differently has been damaging to the body politic. There is no extra cost or saving, but that episode was damaging. It was not because any individual Deputy was getting money he or she was not-----