5.1.04
The Scotsman - UK - Anger over Sinn Fein wages
Anger over Sinn Fein wages
Alison Hardie
Political Correspondent
A POLITICAL row erupted last night over the price of peace in Northern Ireland after it emerged Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have personally been paid more than £1 million of taxpayers’ cash.
The Sinn Fein chiefs’ huge salaries as politicians have been paid continuously for more than four years, despite neither men taking their place in the Commons and the continued mothballing of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Leading Ulster unionists said it was unacceptable that men linked to the highest command of the IRA should have received such large sums of taxpayers’ money.
Mr McGuinness has been paid about £410,000 as education minister in the assembly in addition to claiming the full £221,000 office cost allowance he is entitled to as a Sinn Fein MP.
Mr Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, was paid in excess of £500,000 after claiming his full salary as a member of the assembly plus his full office costs from both Stormont and Westminster. The power-sharing executive at Stormont has now spent more time in suspension than it has working, leading to a growing demand that all its members should be denied their salaries.
Jeffrey Donaldson MP, who quit the Ulster Unionist Party in December in protest at its policy of working with Sinn Fein, said: "It is clear the British taxpayer has been funding the electoral progress of Sinn Fein-IRA.
"It is disgraceful these huge sums of taxpayers’ money are being poured into their coffers."
Anger over Sinn Fein wages
Alison Hardie
Political Correspondent
A POLITICAL row erupted last night over the price of peace in Northern Ireland after it emerged Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have personally been paid more than £1 million of taxpayers’ cash.
The Sinn Fein chiefs’ huge salaries as politicians have been paid continuously for more than four years, despite neither men taking their place in the Commons and the continued mothballing of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Leading Ulster unionists said it was unacceptable that men linked to the highest command of the IRA should have received such large sums of taxpayers’ money.
Mr McGuinness has been paid about £410,000 as education minister in the assembly in addition to claiming the full £221,000 office cost allowance he is entitled to as a Sinn Fein MP.
Mr Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, was paid in excess of £500,000 after claiming his full salary as a member of the assembly plus his full office costs from both Stormont and Westminster. The power-sharing executive at Stormont has now spent more time in suspension than it has working, leading to a growing demand that all its members should be denied their salaries.
Jeffrey Donaldson MP, who quit the Ulster Unionist Party in December in protest at its policy of working with Sinn Fein, said: "It is clear the British taxpayer has been funding the electoral progress of Sinn Fein-IRA.
"It is disgraceful these huge sums of taxpayers’ money are being poured into their coffers."
