Dissident UUP MP David Burnside has been doing a little digging in the Westminster parliament. He has asked Paul Murphy what the monthly running costs of (a) the Northern Ireland Assembly, (b) Members of the Assembly and (c) the Assembly administration have been since the Assembly was dissolved.
And Murphy’s reply:
The Assembly was dissolved on 28 April. The monthly running costs based on financial transactions for May 2003 are as follows:
Assembly Secretariat-staffing – �785 000
Assembly Secretariat-running costs – �408 000
Former MLAs-salary costs – �217 000
Former MLAs-staffing – �588 000
All other Member/Party costs – �172 000
Total monthly costs – �2,170 000
In the meantime, the costs of having neither local democracy nor government will not be so easy to quantify. Information from Gary Kent.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
Discover more from Slugger O'Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
