Members of the Greek Parliament like Michalis Tamilos from Trikala, Central Greece, must be a shining exception, “one in three hundred”, so to speak. He seems so much devoted to the promotion of the interests of his voters, that he considers as waste of time the participation to several parliamentary committees – how much more now that the allowance MPs get for this has been substantially cut into half.
Tamilos (Nea Dimocratia) complained about the increased parliamentray duties he has been assigned to. One of them, his participation to the sub-committee on Water Resources.
During a meeting of the sub-committee, Tamilos got upset for the long duration of the meeting, ‘while participants do not even get paid’.
“Here is not a university where we learn what’s going on with the environment. I’m not going to sit here and learn. Whoever knows about, knows about… Are we going to do some scientific analysis here?”
And continued teaching his colleagues about the duties of an MP:
“It’s not the work of lawmaker to be in committees and in the parliament the whole day and waste long hours on this. The work of lawmaker is to be in the ministries and promote the requests of his prefecture.”
And he added, setting his colleagues in stunning:
“We get paid once a month, while we come here every week?”
Tamilos’ outbust was filmed by the Parliament camera, and the footage was broadcast by a satirical show on private ANT1 television. The news made the rounds off- and online and reporters dug for some comment, on the following day.
But instead of apologizing or saying something like ” ‘t was a misunderstanding”, Tamilos hit back:
“You, journalists, instead of accusing us, MPs, for having voted for the austerity measures, you accusing us because we scratching our @@s”.
He argued that the subcommittees are supportive, that they produce no substantial work and “we sit there for 4.5 hours and nothing comes out.”
For this reason, he said he had already submitted a proposal to the Parliament speaker to “reduce the number of parliamentary committees.” (news247)
PS Rumors that he proposed as well to abolish the parliament and have only the cabinet of ministers are confirmed as baseless because then Michalis Tamilos would not be elected and he would not be able to appear before the minister and ask favors for his voters.
Also rumors that he asked “the MPs to attend committees without payment at all’ exist only in the the sphere of fantasy of KTG-readers.
michalis should come to ireland
our guys get travelling expenses to go to work
even if they live in the city[where parliment sits]
Haven’t you got enough system-spongers of your own? Shall we tell this guy about the laundry allowance (not money laudering :)), the 100% tax relief on house purchases in Dublin, the mobile phone allowance, potential for 80,000+ travel expenses, free helicopter rides, free postage he can use to send out 1000s of spam letters, just how much it pays to be on committees, how an independent gets an extra 30k or so per year for NOT belonging to a party, how he can claim 55€ per day extra, tax free, for living in Dublin, and all the other trials and tribulations of being an Irish MP?
But, of course, Ireland is not Greece. Ireland is special… (dixit Enda)
so that is where my taxes go! ignorance is bliss! your info. is pretty comprehensive i would like to document your info. for when a politican comes calling do you have an irish connection??
I’m trying to think of other possible allowances and not many come to mind, hair dye allowance for stress that might be caused, plastic surgery allowance for wrinkles from stress, trouser replacement allowance due to sitting for excessive periods, rubber ducky allowance for baths with toys needed after some sessions,soothing music allowance for dealing with the after effects of listening to shouting, ok, the list can go on I guess.
you forgot that one: overtime allowance during summer vacation 🙂
Love the rubber ducky one.
@ Cyril mc donnell: How to screw the electorate, Irish style. I’m sure this is standard procedure in any “democracy”, details will probably differ.
TD (MP to non Irish speakers)” € 92,672 per annum
Travel expenses: from € 12,000 to € 37,850 (depending on how far they must travel. 12K if they can walk it, 37K if they must use free public tranport, right J. Healy Ray?)
Public representation allowance: they have the choice. 15K lump sum, no questions asked, or 27,5k vouched (But isn’t that what they are, public representatives, who get paid 92K already???)
Secreterial allowance: 41K vouced or 9K no questions asked. Additional 11,5 K available, vouched
Free telephone = 1,250 pre paid envelopes PER MONTH for postage
€ 750 per 18 months for a NEW mobile phone (bill not included)
One off 8K to set up office, no questions asked
Committee chairs get an extra € 1,1 telephone allowance
Party Leaders allowance: for the first 10 TD’s € 71K PER TD per annum
for 11th -30TD, an ADDITIONAL 57K per annum
over 30 TD’s, and additional 28K per TD
Non party TDs (Independents) 41K per year allowance
Ceann Comhairle (House Speaker) and ADDITONAL allowance of 76K per annum
Leas-Cheann Comhairle (Opposition Speaker) an additional 37K per annu,
Cathaoirleach (Upper House Chairman) an Additional 44K per annum
Leas-Chathaoirleach (Opposition chair) an additional 24,5K per annum
Upper House Speaker an additional 19,5 K
Extras
Government Whip: an additional 19K per annum (more whipping, higher pay :))
Minor party whips: anything from 6K +
Assistant whip: anything from 3K up to 15K extra per annum
Deputy leader of the upper house: 9,5 K extra per annum
Government whip: 6K extra
Assistant Government whip: 4K extra
Party leaders: anything up to 9,5K
Leader of independent senators: 6K extra (How can you be independent if you answer to a leader?)
Leader of the other independent senators (NO JOKE!!!): 6K extra
Each group of senators also has a whip, earning 4K to 6K extra.
Each committee chair: 9,5K extra per annum (Last count, 29 committees, 2 more in the making)
Bottom line, if Irish TD’s play there cards right, they can earn up to 260K a year.
Then there are of course the “Quangos”, best described as extra marital government affairs, set up to pay friends and relations a tax free income.
that’s the scam we know about.
It would be a good exercise to make comparisson tables with other countires and see who is the best at screwing their people.
Very outspoken man. Is he new at politics or something?
I don’t know but it seems example of dream of some Greeks: earn money with no work