MLA claimed rent expenses for office built on his farm

The David Gordon has been doing the legwork and has turned up a very interesting detail on UUP MLA Billy Armstrong, who “claimed rental expenses for a prefab constituency office owned by his wife and based on their farm.” One of those stories that ‘everybody knows about‘, but, once made public has a dynamic all of its own… It simply refuses to go away…As Gordon notes:

Assembly members can claim up to £70,000 of public money a year for office running costs, including rent, staffing, telephone bills, heating and electricity. The figure was raised from £48,000 last year following the restoration of devolution.

No one serious doubts the hard work of many constituency MLAs, but that is up to £70, 000 for which no account is made directly back to government.

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.