Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 5 May 1943

Vol. 89 No. 18

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Payment of Senator's Allowance.

asked the Minister for Finance if he will state whether Mr. Frank MacDermot is still receiving from public funds an allowance of £30 per month as a member of Seanad Eireann; whether he is aware that Mr. MacDermot is residing in the United States of America, and has been employed there for more than a year as a Press correspondent for a London newspaper; whether any sums have been remitted to America on Mr. MacDermot's account, and, if so, how much; and what consideration induced the Government to deplete the foreign exchange in this manner for the purpose of making payments in respect of service in the Seanad to a member who is not domiciled in this country.

The allowance is paid regularly to Senator MacDermot, but no money has been remitted on the Senator's account to the United States of America, where, I am aware, the Senator is now residing.

I should add that in a letter which he addressed to me on the 27th July last Senator MacDermot offered to surrender the allowance for the balance of the period during which he would be absent from this country. I felt, however, precluded from accepting the Senator's offer by the terms of the statute governing allowances to members of the Oireachtas.

Mr. Byrne

Is the Minister aware——

I think I should add, in justice to the Senator, that I have from time to time observed in the printed reports of the Red Cross Society acknowledgments of subscriptions of £30 from the Senator.

Mr. Byrne

The House should be made aware—and I hope it will be made aware by the Minister—that Senator MacDermot——

If the Deputy has a supplementary question, he should put it.

Mr. Byrne

I will ask the Minister if he is aware that, without any kind of publicity, Senator MacDermot has given every penny of his salary to charitable institutions?

What he is earning in America?

Mr. Byrne

It is better to speak the truth when the occasion for doing so arises.

Top
Share