Allister challenges Sinn Fein on expenses
09 April 2009
Ulster European Parliament Member and QC Jim Allister last night (Wed 08 April) challenged Sinn Fein to reveal who they paid rent that they claimed each year for London flats when they do not take their seats as MPs in Westminster.
Mr Allister said the most fundamental and corrupting issue in the expenses row was double or triple jobbing --and called on those who have multiple jobs to put an end to it.
In a statement last night Mr Allister said: "A fundamental and corrupting issue is double & triple jobbing. No one can or should pretend to do more than one full-time public representation job. Being an MP requires more than one day a week attendance at Westminster, if that. To defuse the public contempt into which double and triple jobbers have brought public life, those who are pocketing two and three salaries should resign the job(s) they patently haven't time to do.
"The culture of dynasty politics practised by some adds to the public disdain.
"Not surprisingly, amoral Sinn Fein plummets the depths by claiming allowances for the jobs of being MPs and a London Living Allowance when they neither attend Parliament, nor go to London sufficiently often to begin to warrant their excessive claims of the London Allowance. The contrast between minimal travelling claims and massive rental claims could not be more stark".
On the Sinn Fein expenses issue Mr Allister said: "I challenge SF to say to whom they pay the massive rent claimed each year for the London flats. This is particularly pertinent in the context of the acknowledged practice of the IRA having invested some of its ill-gotten gains in the property market. Just to whom is SF paying rent?
"I had letters published in the Belfast Telegraph and Belfast Newsletter pointing out that my own expenses and 2008 salary are published on my website."
