BY ADRIAN MULLAN

WEST Tyrone MLA Dr
Kieran Deeny has rubbished reports that he is the Assembly's fifth most expensive member to keep.

Dr Deeny said that a BBC report focused on the office allowances which include rent, rates, office costs and the payroll costs for staff. Not a penny of the money goes to him, he said.

Dr Deeny went further claiming he took a £20,000 a year cut in salary to become an MLA.

"Most GPs in Northern Ireland would earn at least £90,000," said the West Tyrone Independent MLA. "I had to give up my weekend and out-of-hours work and go part-time which, in real terms, means that I took a sizeable wage cut."

INADEQUATE

Dr Deeny said that the former of Secretary of State recognised that the expenses allowed for running a constituency office were inadequate and he increased them from £48,000 to £68,167 per year.

The basic MLA salary is £41,000, which is £10,000 less than the salary paid to members of the Scottish assembly.

Dr Deeny ran up an office bill of £28,185 between the restoration of the Assembly on May 8 and this week, with a further £14,322 having accrued since mid-July. This, he explained, included three months rental for his office from last year.

He suggested that some media outlets were treating the matter of office expenses as if they were personal expenses, and he hinted that there might be an element of mischief in it.

COSTS

In June of this year, he formed a political party which means he receives an allowance of £2,000 per month for party expenses not reflected in the £28,185 for office costs. Nor are travel costs included in that figure.

Dr Deeny went on to say that if doctors and other people from the senior professions had to take pays cuts to become MLAs, they were not going to be attracted into politics.

Another West Tyrone MLA, Allan Bresland of the DUP, was amongst the lowest of the expenses recipients with just £2,185 being claimed.

The total expenses claimed by members since May 8 is just under £2 million, an average of around £132 per day per member.

The highest expenditure since the Assembly was re-opened was that claimed by the DUP's Upper Bann MLA Stephen Moutray who has claimed £33,522.