Inside the Dáil
John Drennan, in The Irish Sun, reports:
Leinster House is to crack down on journalists who it says portray TDs and their salaries in a negative light.
It is a move some might see as like President Donald Trump’s attacks on the US media’s “fake news”.
A private Houses of the Oireachtas Draft Communications Strategy Report plans to “robustly and promptly challenge inaccurate, misleading, unbalanced or misinformed media coverage of parliament”.
The draft strategy expresses particular concerns about the “less than benign view of the public on the salaries and allowable expenses of members, irrespective of any cuts”. And it believes the media are chiefly to blame.
…One source said: “I think you can translate that into meaning it will be putting manners on the media.”
jaaaaaysus.
yeah..who reads the Sun!
or challenge inaccurate reporting
+1
How dare they “challenge inaccurate, misleading, unbalanced or misinformed media coverage of parliament” Hopefully the Sun will campaign to allow inaccurate, misleading, unbalanced or misinformed coverage go unchallenged.
The Sun talking about manners, WOW!
great. as if there isn’t enough rampant cronyism already.
If its that the government wants to tackle, I hate to say it, real fake news then thats good. If its trying to stop real journalism thats a bad thing.
In fairness the Oireachtas website has a very clear section on members’ salaries and expenses: http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/tdssenators/salariesallowances/
Other public bodies could learn from this.
their use of pdf makes it terribly hard to use and its not clear because it doens’t mention the other allowances they get like PAA
takes 80 pages to explain
http://www.kenfoxe.com/2016/04/guide-to-political-salaries-and-expenses/
Christ almighty.
Before we know it, no one will be allowed to say boo to the poor TDs, never mind say something critical.
I would have thought that this was important information, regardless of its source, but that’s just me.
– A private Houses of the Oireachtas Draft Communications Strategy Report plans to “robustly and promptly challenge inaccurate, misleading, unbalanced or misinformed media coverage of parliament”.
Why does the Sun seem to think this is a bad thing?
…to my eternal shame I once supported/worked for the labour party…of the many TDs I met, all believed they were underpaid and that they could earn much more if not involved in politics…
And I’m sure that the majority were sadly mistaken.
And did any of them test that belief? Like sending resumes outside of state employment?
…after the last election quite a few of them had to…but some had their ministerial pensions, which they betrayed their supporters to acheive, secured..
… and of course there was always JobBridge if any of them had issues landing on their feet straight away.
…sadly, the architect of ScamBridge is still a TD…but I’m assured her days are numbered…
There’s at least two dangers related to creating pressure that forces down politicians salaries (which this is an attempt to do)
* If only politicians who are independently wealthy are able to do the job we will end up with something like the barrister system which limits the diversity of background that we require in politicians. As in, if only rich people become politicians then they will only deal with rich people problems. Look at Britain, look at the US.
* Politicians salaries are directly linked to the civil service. And whether or not you think civil servants deserve the money they get the level set there has a direct impact on wages throughout the economy.
This is the problem – politicians’ salaries being linked to civil servants’ salaries means both are going to be under pressure to rise, and guess who decides on when and how much the raise will be? Right, politicians.
If politicians’ salaries were linked to the average wage, and their pensions were paid for in the same way as company pensions, a little reality might shine into those happy lives, and a little justice might come out of them.
+1
you seem to have a false premise that salaries are paid for work done under minimum quality standards. they are not.
Btw – has anyone seen a TD employment contract template? it should be open to public. Not remuneration, but description of duties?
for ironcorona that was… apologies
That’s not what I said. I said that if you force the wages down then only rich people will become politicians.
Which is fine except rich people only care about rich people problems.
Rich or poor , I think you will find that we will still get to vote for TDs…
If you only get to chose from 5 equally beige, private school, rugby bros then you’re not really getting much of a choice.
” It is a move some might see as like President Donald Trump’s…. ”
Lame… next
They already do this. It’s called RTE.
I’ve just watched the whole McCabe scandal pushed to the back pages of the press. Now it’s all FG leadership irrelevancies taking up the headlines. Looks to me like the powers that be get an easy enough time already from our media. Now they want it even easier? Uh…..
Legislature 1 media baron 0 in recent High Court decision.
Is this attempt to get people worried about the legislature picking on the poor media any way linked?