It's not all about free Christmas cards.....

THE perk of a free printing facility for Oireachtas members isn’t all about Christmas cards — TDs and senators are are also sending taxpayer-funded sympathy, good luck and congratulations cards.

New figures show that the free service, which is mostly used for newsletters and headed notepaper, has cost almost €1m over the past four years — printing 45 million items for 236 elected representatives.

While much of the media’s focus is on Christmas cards, a total of 31 TDs and senators have ordered 21,260 personalised sympathy cards since the start of the current Dail.

Michael Healy-Rae, an independent TD for Kerry South, was the biggest user of this facility, ordering 2,500 sympathy cards in 2014. On average, about 1,140 people die in Kerry each year.

Asked about the large order, Healy-Rae said he was using a service which was available and there was “absolutely nothing wrong with that”.

“It’s easier to place an order for a large amount rather than be coming back repeatedly for smaller print runs. I was being prudent and they won’t go to waste,” said Healy-Rae.

Personalised calendars have also proven highly popular in Leinster House, with almost 728,000 being ordered by 43 TDs and senators since 2011. Niall Collins, Fianna Fail’s justice spokesman, tops the list with orders for 127,000 calendars at a cost of €3,900. However, Alan Kelly, the environment minister, ordered 94,000 calendars at a cost of €4,640, the highest recorded.

Other less commonplace orders were placed by John Perry, a former junior minister, for 300 “good luck” cards, while Fine Gael TD Tony McLoughlin requested 500 “congratulations” cards.

A breakdown of the use of the service shows that 236 elected representatives have had more than 45m items printed during the current Dail term at a cost of €978,877.

The single biggest user is independent TD Terence Flanagan, who has had almost 1.2m items printed at a cost of €22,573. The average value of print orders by all deputies and senators is just under €4,150.

Flanagan, who represents the Dublin North-East constituency, which had an electorate of 58,542 in the 2011 general election, has ordered print runs of 75,000 on two occasions for newsletters. He explained the size of the order was due to the fact that boundary changes meant his new, enlarged constituency of Dublin Bay North had a population of 147,000.

“I try to issue at least four or five news bulletins to each house every year outlining my Dail work on national and local issues of concern and other general information,” said Flanagan. “When I first stood for election I promised my constituents that I would always be available and keep in touch with them.”

The second biggest user of the printing facility is Frances Fitzgerald, the justice minister, who ordered almost 800,000 items costing €16,229.

Other big users of the service include Labour TD Seán Kenny (€15,890), Labour junior minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (€15,172) and Fine Gael deputy Derek Keating (€14,877).

An Oireachtas spokesman said the use of the facility was governed by rules which stipulate it as for use “solely in connection with their parliamentary duties”.

It allows material for communicating with constituents on local or general public interest issues, government policies and legislation, including newsletters, flyers, business and Christmas cards.

TDs and senators cannot use the service for corporate material such as fundraising, overt electioneering material, content which promotes a private enterprise, or material which is designed to influence how to vote in a referendum.

The Thin Blue Line

One in five of all gardaí have been injured in the line of duty over the last five years.

Figures provided by the Department of Justice show 2,218 members of the force have suffered injuries in the course of their work between January 2011 and October 2015.

More than 580 officers were injured last year alone – the highest annual total for 

several years. Up to October 2 this year, 383 gardaí have reported work injuries.

The annual cost of compensation for gardai who are maliciously injured in the course of duty averages around €15m.

Fine Gael TD, Bernard Durkan, who received the information in response to a parliamentary question, has described the frequency of how often gardaí are attacked at work as “quite shocking.”

The Kildare deputy said questions needed to be asked about the attitude of some parts of Irish society to the force, especially as two gardaí, Adrian Donohoe and Tony Golden, were killed on duty in Co Louth in the past three years.

“It is extremely worrying that there are consistent levels of violence towards gardaí,” said Mr Durkan.

An analysis of the figures shows that gardaí in Louth are among the most at risk of being injured at work.

However, Waterford is the most dangerous Garda division to be stationed with more than a third of all gardaí in the county experiencing some injury since 2011.

Garda figures show 99 out of 275 officers – 36% of the total based in Waterford - have suffered injuries at work in the past five years.  The national average is just under 20%.

More than 30% of gardaí in Donegal, Louth and the Dublin West region which covers Blanchardstown, Ballyfermot and Finglas, have also been injured in the line of duty over the same period.

The safest part of the country to be stationed is the Garda division of Roscommon/Longford where just under 12% of officers have sustained a work-related injury.

Other areas with relatively low rates of injury among gardaí are Sligo, Leitrim, Mayo and Dublin North Central which includes one of the country’s busiest Garda stations, Store Street.

The figures only provide information on injuries sustained by gardaí attached to Garda stations. It does not indicate data on members attached to specialist Garda units or those stationed at Garda headquarters. (For calculating injury rates, staffing levels in December 2013 were used.)

Commenting on the figures Mr Durkan observed: “They show that gardaí are taking a serious risk when they report for duty each day. It is an appalling disregard for law enforcement officers.”

 “It is a serious challenge to the security of the state that the life and well-being of gardaí should be taken so lightly by people of that disposition. It’s no harm for society to reflect on the direction in which we are heading,” he added.

Mr Durkan said it was distressing that there were some Garda stations and divisions where there was a worrying level of disrespect for gardaí.

For example, 69 gardaí based in Tallaght have been injured at work in the past five years – almost 40% of all gardaí at the station.

In Waterford, 64 gardaí based at the city’s main station on Patrick Street suffered injuries over the same period, including 27 alone last year.

Mr Durkan said he was uncertain whether the high levels of injury were due to the problem of criminal gangs or a more general disregard for the law.

The scale of the injuries to gardaí also has an impact on the number of officers available for frontline policing as well as on the cost of compensation claims.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald revealed last week that her department was currently assessing 317 claims from gardaí who were maliciously injured in the course of their duty. Information is awaited from the Garda authorities in relation to another 550 cases.

To make a claim under the scheme, the injury must not be minor in nature and confirmation, must have occurred on duty and must not be caused as the result of wilful default or negligence on the part of the garda.

The Department of Justice paid out compensation totaling €17.6m in 2013 and €13.6m last year to gardaí injured on duty.

A recent report by the Garda Inspectorate noted that there were 258 gardaí on limited duty or restricted hours, usually as a result of injury or sickness, in March 2014 – the manpower of a small Garda division.

Full statistics on Garda injuries are available at this link.

Anyone seeking information on an individual station can contact me via the blog.

(Unfortunately the data provided by the Department of Justice was not in an easily convertible format to enable me provide statistics for each Garda station).

Garda spending

An Garda Síochána, prompted by coming under freedom of information legislation, has begun publishing details routinely about all payments in excess of €25,000.

And for that the decision  should be rightly welcomed.

By accident or design, the information published on the Garda website is not made available in a consistent format, i.e excel, PDF and other styles not readily convertible.

However, we plough on through the data minefield to ensure such info is more accessible and capable of being analysed.

If you find anything interesting in the info, please let us know.

Here's a piece based on the above data published recently in the Ireland edition of The Times.

More than €38.5 million has been paid to the private company which runs the country’s speed cameras since 2013.

New figures published by An Garda Siochana show that the GoSafe consortium receives monthly payments of about €1.4 million for operating a nationwide fleet of speed check vans.

The expenditure is included in a breakdown of €168.3 million spent by gardai on all goods and services with a value in excess of €20,000 between January 2013 and March this year.

The records show that other big clients of the force are Accenture, the management and technology consultancy, as well as Tetra Ireland Communications, Hyundai and Ford.

A garda spokesman said the figures were being proactively published by the force since it became subject to freedom of information legislation on October 14. Gardai are only required to disclose records relating to human resource management, finance and procurement.

Responsibility for the day-to-day management of expenditure is overseen by the finance directorate based in garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park, which has a budget of €1.35 billion this year.

GoSafe, which is based in Listowel, Co Kerry, is contracted to provide 6,000 hours of monitoring a month, using a fleet of 45 vans in 727 zones identified as accident blackspots. The payments it receives are not linked to the number of detections it makes.

Frances Fitzgerald, the justice minister, has said that the income from speeding fines, “is retained and offset against the cost of the safety camera contract”.

On average, the speed cameras detect about 70,000 offences by motorists each year, raising about €5.6 million in fines.

Accenture has received the second biggest share of garda business. The consultancy’s Irish division has been paid almost €28.7 million for IT support and maintenance since 2013. Overall spending by gardai on IT equipment and services is more than €60 million over the same period.

Tetra Ireland Communications, which provides a secure national communications network to gardai and emergency services, has received just under €23 million.

Ms Fitzgerald recently confirmed that more than €34 million had been spent on new garda vehicles since 2012, including the purchase of 640 cars this year.

The latest records reveal that Hyundai has secured business worth €13.4 million from gardai since 2013, while Ford has won contracts to the value of just under €5.3 million. The figures for the first quarter of this year only list payments for vehicles worth €112,600. They were bought from Brady’s of Castleknock in Dublin — a Mercedes-Benz car dealer.

The size of the garda fleet is now at its highest level since 2011, with 2,653 vehicles in service at the end of June, including 1,962 cars, of which 788 are unmarked. The number of garda motorcycles has halved since 2009, with just 121 in operation last year.

Expenditure on the garda fleet has been falling steadily since 2010, when it was €24.8 million, of which €11.75 million was spent on fuel. Last year, fleet maintenance and running costs decreased to €20.5 million, of which €9.4 million went on fuel.

The only detailed breakdown on fuel expenses relates to 2013, when €482,000 was paid to Topaz — the petrol retail group owned by Denis O’Brien. About €1.3 million is spent on average each year on tyres for garda vehicles.

The figures also show that €942,860 has been spent on garda uniforms since 2013.

The Sunday Times revealed yesterday that gardai had spent more than €150,000 on Tasers over the same period as the weapons become a key part of the force’s arsenal. The stun guns are now a standard issue for members of various armed response units around the country.

Gardai are exempt from having to provide any information under freedom of information legislation relating to operational matters including the emergency response unit, the criminal assets bureau and the special detective unit, as well as the use of covert intelligence and the witness protection programme.

Finally here's a link to the data in spreadsheet format http://tinyurl.com/jg5mzoh

Suicide in Ireland - update

Suicide rates in Ireland have continued to fall in 2013 and 2014, according to new provisional figures published by the National Office for Suicide Prevention.

The NOSP’s latest annual report shows there were 541 deaths by suicide in 2012, falling to 475 in 2013 and 459 last year.

The latest official figures show the suicide rate in 2012 was 11.8 deaths per 100,000 population. Provisional data suggests the rate fell to 10.3 deaths in 2013 and 10 deaths per 100,000 last year.

However, the NOSP said the pattern should be interpreted with some caution as data for the last two years is still provisional.

Nevertheless, it suggests a reverse of trend which had been particularly evident since the onset of the economic recession in Ireland in 2008 of a rising number of suicide deaths.

According to the NOSP, the increase over the period can be wholly attributed to an increase in the male suicide rate.

The annual number of deaths by suicide in the Republic peaked in 2011 with 554. On average males account for 4 out of 5 deaths by suicide.

“Ireland’s suicide rate is not high by European comparison. However, suicide rates among young males and females are high,” said NOSP director, Gerry Raleigh.

He said the suicide rate among both males and females aged 15-19 years was 10.5 per 100,000 population – the 4^th highest of 31 European countries.

“The methods by which people choose to end their lives in Ireland continue to be challenging,” remarked Mr Raleigh.

He pointed out that while there has been a 12% decrease in the overall rate of self-harm presentations in hospital emergency departments since 2010, the level was still 6% above the 2007 rate before the economic recession.

Mr Raleigh said he believed Ireland could achieve the World Health Organisation’s global target of reducing the suicide rate by 10% by 2020.

“Historically as a nation we have struggled to talk openly about suicide and how it impacts on us. However, our national conversation is growing and we are becoming better at discussing and addressing issues relating to our mental health,” said Mr Raleigh.

On a county basis, the most recent data shows the highest suicide rates are found in Limerick City, Cork City, Kerry and Wexford.

The highest rate in the state is found in Limerick city where there were 21.1 deaths per 100,000 over the period 2011-2013 – almost twice the national average of 11.4 deaths per 100,000.

Kerry has the second highest rate at 19.7  deaths followed by Wexford (19.4) and Cork City (16).

At the other end of the scale the lowest suicide rate in the 2011-2013 period is in Fingal at 5.4 deaths per 100,000 population – more than half the national average.

Other areas with below-average suicide rates include Donegal, Tipperary North, Dun Laoghaire, South Dublin, Meath, Wicklow and Waterford City.

At 15.4 deaths per 100,000 population, the suicide rate in the area of Dublin City Council is considerably higher that other local authority areas in the capital.

Rates are calculated on a three-year moving average to smooth out short-term fluctuations and highlight longer-term trends or cycles.

The latest figures indicate that the male suicide rate has declined from a peak of 20.2 in 2011 to 16.1 last year – the lowest rate since the start of the millennium.

The age group with the highest rate of male suicides almost consistently over the period has been those aged 45-54 years.

However, the female suicide rate increased slightly last year – up to 3.9 deaths per 100,000 from 3.4 in 2013 which was the lowest rate in the past 15 years.

According to experts, it is likely that a proportion of deaths classified as undetermined are also deaths by suicide. The latest provisional figures show there were 65 undetermined deaths in 2013 and 62 in 2014.

The NOSP also published details of self-harm statistics gathered by the National Self-Harm Registry Ireland from presentations to hospital emergency departments.

An increased risk of suicidal behaviour is associated with all episodes of self-harm.

According to the registry, an overdose of drugs was the most common method of self-harm in last year, accounting for two-thirds of all cases.

A total of 11,126 presentations to hospital of self-harm involving 8,708 individuals was recorded in 2014. It equates to around 200 incidents of self-harm per 100,000 population.

The NOSP said self-harm rates in Ireland had now levelled off after three successive years of a decrease. However, the 2014 rate of self-harm is still significantly higher than the pre-recession rate in 2007 when it stood at 188.

Self-harm is more prevalent among younger age groups.

The highest rate last year was found among teenage girls aged 15-19 years at 678 incidents of self-harm per 100,000 population.

It translates as one in every 147 girls in that age group needing hospital treatment last year as a consequence of self-harm.

Repeated self-harm is a significant risk factor for suicide. More than one in five cases of self-harm recorded in Irish hospitals last year were repeat acts of self-harm.

A total of 1,264 individuals made at least one repeat presentation to hospital with self-harm during 2014.

A recent study concluded that the recession had an impact on suicide and self-harm rates in Ireland.

It found the rate of male suicide was 57% higher than it would have been had the economic downturn not occurred.

The rate of male and female self-harm was respectively 37% and 26% higher.

“In absolute numbers there were an additional 476 male suicides during 2008-2012 than we would have expected to see had the recession not occurred,” said Mr Raleigh.

Similarly there were over 5,000 more males and more than 3,800 extra females engaged in acts of self-harm than might others have been expected due to the economic crisis.

Top Marks for Civil Servants!!!

They might be the focus of much public cynicism but Ireland’s civil servants have a pretty high estimation of their own value.

The results of the latest annual review of their own work performance shows almost 60% of staff across all Government departments and other State bodies achieved above-average ratings in 2014 with just under 7% being classified as “exceptional.”

A ranking of “fully achieved expectations” is the minimum required by all civil servants in order to receive annual increments to their salary – a target achieved by more than 99% of them last year.

Just 0.6 % were rated as either “unsatisfactory” or “needs to improve” – in other words “below-average” under the Performance Management and Development System (PMDS) overseen by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The figure in 2013 was 0.8%.

In normal distributions, up to 30% of all staff in any organisation could be expected to receive a below-average rating.

Despite promised reform of the system in 2013, the latest results reinforce the findings of a 2010 evaluation of the PMDS which concluded the civil service is out of line with normal distribution of results. It concluded that “the award of too many high ratings and too few low ratings is the established practice.”

Across the entire civil service, 59% of workers obtained an above-average rating – up from 56.2% in 2013, with the figure rising to almost 82% in the Department of Health.

The Department of Foreign Affairs reported that 22.2% of its staff – more than three times the civil service average – obtained an “exceptional performance” rating.

A total of 21% of employees in the Department of Health achieved the same classification, while almost 18% of staff at the Department of the Taoiseach scored the top mark.

The Department of the Environment, which has been widely criticised over its role in establishing Irish Water, gave an “exceptional performance” rating to over 13% of its staff.

No member of staff was recorded having a below-average performance last year in the Departments of  Children and Youth Affairs, Defence, Health and the Taoiseach.

Other State bodies to achieve the same high standards were Met Éireann, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, the National Council for Special Education, the Public Appointments Service, the Law Reform Commisson, the State Laboratory, the National Share Services Office, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Office of Government Procurement and staff attached to the President, Michael D Higgins.

The highest proportion of staff to receive below-average ratings in the civil service last year was found in the Property Registration Authority where the work of 5.2% of civil servants was categorised as either unsatisfactory or needing to improve. The next highest was the Valuation Office (2.7%) and the National Library (2.5%)

The latest figures on the PMDS also show the number of civil servants completing the performance assessment fell last year with a compliance rate of 82.1% - down from 86.4% in 2013.

The PMDS applies to approximately 30,000 civil servants.

The Department of Finance was the only one out of 41 departments and State bodies to conduct a PMDS on all its staff last year. The lowest compliance rates were in the Departments of Health and Children and Youth Affairs where just less than half of civil servants had their performance assessed in 2014.

In July the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Brendan Howlin, said the current ratings scheme would be replaced in 2016 with a new model of performance assessment.

Mr Howlin said the new scheme would be focussed on “identifying excellent performance, leadership potential and underperformance and that encourages regular and constructive feedback.”

He said PMDS would also be integrated with learning and development through focused training for managers on the effective management of performance.

“PMDS places a strong emphasis on individual performance and accountability through the setting of goals and the monitoring of performance,” said Mr Howlin.

The Minister acknowledged that a key challenge across the civil service was the delivery of high performance and to fully engage staff and managers in the management and improvement of performance.

Dáil Voting Record 2011-2015

Almost a third of the country’s TDs miss every vote in the Dáil and the non-attendance of politicians at such votes is getting progressively worse.

An analysis by the Irish edition of The Times of the voting records of the 173 TDs who have been elected during the lifetime of the current Dáil shows 29 per cent on average are either absent or abstain from each vote.

However, absentee rates from votes have increased steadily over the course of the 31st Dáil rising from 22 per cent in 2011 to 39 per cent this year.

Since March 2011, a total of 824 votes have been held in the Dáil on issues ranging from important legislation to private member’s bills as well as the suspension of TDs and procedural matters.

The traditional arrangements of past parliaments whereby Opposition TDs offered a “pair” to facilitate ministers away on official State business doesn’t exist in the current Dáil because of the size of the coalition’s majority.

Sources across the political divide blame the Government’s large voting majority for the falling attendance at Dáil votes by TDs from all political parties.

“Quite simply a lot of TDs are totally taking the piss. They won’t bother to show up when they know the government is unlikely to be defeated,” said one senior Government source.

“There are one or two serial abusers of this practice. All TDs can claim they have work to do elsewhere or need to be back in their constituencies but some of them forget they were elected to vote. If a deputy doesn’t bother to turn up for a Dáil vote, it’s a sign that they have no respect for parliament,” the source added.

The Ceann Comhairle, Seán Barrett, said the government won most Dáil divisions by a margin of 15-20 votes, even though the coalition has a working majority of 34 votes.

Mr Barrettt, who oversees voting in the Dáil, admitted there was “no sense of urgency” among current TDs to attend votes compared to previous parliaments because they know the Government had a comfortable majority.

“Because of the size of the majority, the party whips are being more liberal when it comes to getting TDs into the Dáil to vote,” Mr Barrett said. As Ceann Comhairle Mr Barrett only gets to use a casting vote in the Dáil to break a deadlock.

He believed it would become “inevitable” that certain days of the week in future would be reserved for meetings of Oireachtas committees because of the additional powers they have been given in the legislative process and in order to avoid clashes with votes in the Dáil.

Unsurprisingly, Enda Kenny as Taoiseach and other Government ministers have some of the highest non-attendance rates as they are absent from the Dáil on government business for long periods. However, the Minister for Children, James Reilly, has the best record of ministers who have been in the cabinet since 2011, missing just 36 per cent of votes.

Illness accounts for the poor attendance rate of some TDs including three deputies who died  – Shane McEntee, Brian Lenihan and Nicky McFadden.

TDs with high absentee rates include the Renua Ireland leader, Lucinda Creighton, who has missed more than 580 Dáil votes – a figure in excess of 70 per cent.

Others who fail to vote on a regular basis include Independent TD for Tipperary North, Michael Lowry who has also missed 70 per cent  of all votes over the past five years. Fianna Fáil’s Willie O’Dea and Labour’s Willie Penrose have both missed 55 per cent of all votes.

Among Fine Gael backbenchers, Áine Collins and Ciarán Cannon had below-average attendance rates at votes.

In 2015, several TDs including Socialist Party Leader, Joe Higgins and Billy Timmins (Renua) have missed more than 80 per cent of votes.

The analysis reveals Ruairi Quinn has a better attendance at Dáil votes when he was a member of the Cabinet than since he stood down as minister – averaging a 61 per cent absentee rate during the lifetime of the  Dáil but missing 70 per cent of votes this year since he returned to the Labour back benches. In contrast, his party colleague Pat Rabbitte has missed just 22 per cent of votes in 2015 year since losing his ministry in a cabinet reshuffle last year.

At the other end of the scale, the most diligent attendant at Dáil divisions is Fine Gael’s Jerry Buttimer who has missed just 27 votes over the past five years – just over 3 per cent of all votes..

Others with low absentee rates from voting are Sean Kyne of Fine Gael, Sinn Fein’s Sandra McLellan and Labour’s Seán Kenny.

Among TDs who have missed less than 10 per cent of all Dáil votes are Labour’s Robert Dowds and, Emmet Stagg, Sinn Fein’s Michael Colreavy, Independent Finian McGrath and Fine Gael’s Joe Carey, Dan Neville, Bernard Durkan, Noel Harrington, Paul Connaughton, and Patrick O’Donovan.

Among the main political parties, Sinn Féin had the best attendance record with the party’s TDs missing less than 1 in 5 votes, while Fianna Fáil had the worst absentee figures by failing to show up for more than a third of all votes.

On a constituency basis, Tipperary North has the worst absentee rate when the impact of the ceann comhairle’s role is excluded from the voting rate of deputies in Dún Laoghaire. The best voting record among the 44 current constituencies is by the four TDs for Kildare North.

The highest turnout for any Dáil vote was in relation to the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill in July 2013 when just eight TDs failed to vote.

Analysis of the Oireachtas data has been done with the assistance of webrobots.io

Reacting to the figures Lucinda Creighton defended her record as the Dail’s second worst voter.

The Renua Ireland leader, who has missed an average of 70.5 per cent of votes since her election in 2011, said she deliberately skips votes because her party is not afforded the same speaking rights as other groups in parliament.

“I’m not surprised at all,” she said. “I was European Affairs minister for two and a half years and was out of the country every week. In the Dáil currently, I don’t vote on motions or indeed any debates where we as a group of TDs are excluded from participation. My colleagues in Renua apply the same policy.”

Parties with fewer than seven TDs do not have the same speaking rights as larger groups in the Dail.

Ms Creighton’s party colleague Billy Timmins, the Wicklow TD, who has missed an average of 47.5 per cent of votes, said: “Counting the number of times a person votes each year is not a good measure of a TD’s work. A lot of the votes that are called are gimmicks by the opposition to get attention when they know they will not win,” he said.

Enda Kenny has missed the most votes over the past five years but as Taoiseach he is not expected to be present in the Dail for all motions.

Willie O’Dea, the Fianna Fail TD for Limerick City, said he “couldn’t believe” he had missed 70 per cent of the divisions called in the past year. As one of only 20 Fianna Fail TDs, he said he has been under increasing pressure in areas where there was no elected representative for the party.

“I have had queries flooding in from areas like Tipperary and Kerry. I have to protect my seat. It is very difficult to be in the Dail and carry out your constituency work at the same time; you have to be seen around the constituency,” he said.

Willie Penrose, a former junior minister and Labour TD, said he simply does not believe in voting on private members’ bills. “I do my own thing. If I believe in an issue I will vote for it, but if it’s just opposition parties trying to score points then I don’t bother.”

Mr Penrose, who missed an average of 54 per cent of votes, stressed that he was ill for a short period of time in 2014.

As the politician with the best record, Jerry Buttimer, Cork South Central TD, said he believes politicians best serve their voters when they engage in both constituency work and legislating in the Dail.

“I think it is important that we attend the parliament, as that is what we are elected to do. A voting record is not a complete barometer of what we do, but I take the role seriously,” he said.

Finian McGrath, an independent TD for Dublin North Central, said: “I’m concerned that a lot of the political parties don’t take the Dáil seriously enough. This is why we’re constantly hearing about the need for Dáil reform. Attendance for voting and participating in legislation should be of the utmost importance to TDs, because that’s what they were elected to do.”

Ashley Madison - Number cheats?

Almost 1,200 Irish-based subscribers have paid thousands of euros to Ashley Madison, the dating website for people seeking extramarital affairs, including one Dubliner who spent almost €10,000.

An analysis of millions of records of credit card transactions leaked as part of an international hacking scandal show there were more than 6,160 financial transactions by Irish subscribers since 2008.

Irish customers of the Canadian-based website spent around €200,000 on payments to Ashley Madison before last month’s high-profile cyber attack which captured global headlines. They include one Dubliner who has splashed out almost €10,000 on various types of subscriptions.

However, a detailed examination of the records by The Sunday Times identified approximately 1,150 unique users around the country. The overwhelming majority are male with just 44 female names contained on the list – just under 4 per cent of the total – although the gender of some subscribers is unknown.

All 26 counties are represented on the list with approximately 40% of the total based in Dublin with 477 members.

The next highest number of Ashley Madison paid subscribers are based in Cork (128) followed by Galway (62), Kildare (50) and Limerick (41). The lowest level of interest is, unsurprisingly, in counties with the smallest populations including Leitrim (3), Longford (8) and Carlow (9) with one member even located on one of Ireland’s offshore islands.

The vast majority of the website’s Irish members used personal e-mails addresses with no links to their employment or job. However, a number of individuals used a business e-mail address with the database containing listings with links to a solicitor’s firm in Munster, a property services company in Dublin, a private investigation firm and an educational website.

The name of a criminal who spent time in prison after being convicted of managing brothels is also on the list.

Others have links to a building firm in the midlands, a pharmacy in Connacht and a furniture supplier in Leinster, while there are also contact details for individuals based in UCD and UCC.

One male subscriber based in Rathfarnham, Co Dublin authorised a total of 123 transactions at a cost of almost €9,770 between October 2010 and August 2014.

The man’s last payment was for €19 – the “full delete” fee associated with getting Ashley Madison to permanently erase a person’s profile including every message, photo and interaction they had on the site.

He also made three payments of €249 during 2011 – the charge for the site’s “affair guaranteed” package.

The database was leaked at the same time as a larger datadump of Ashley Madison’s client base which contained details of some 37 million users of the website, including an estimated 115,000 subscribers with e-mail addresses linked to Ireland.

However, there is significant doubt if such figures relate to unique and actual individuals as there is no means of verifying that people’s e-mail addresses were not registered by others. Among the registered users, more than 12 million had e-mails which were regarded as invalid.

The database containing information of credit card transactions is a separate list and includes the names, residential and e-mail addresses, last four-digits of credit card numbers and IP addresses (computer identifiers).

For such payments, Ashley Madison subscribers are able to send e-mail and priority messages to other subscribers, initiate chat sessions and send virtual gifts, while free members cannot initiate any contact.

Internet searches on the names of a random sample of people on the list confirm many as business executives and professionals who would be well known in their own area, with several involved in running their own business.

Since the start of the leak, Ashley Madison has been forced to defend itself against criticism that few women actively use its service.

The company’s claim that females compromise 5.5 million out of its 37 million clients is seen by many as implausible with computer experts hinting that addresses could have been bulk-bought from marketing companies.

Attention has also been drawn to the fact that the database reveals that only a few thousand women checked their messages or engaged on the site’s chat platform with most non-paying, female subscribers showing no kind of activity on their Ashley Madison account.

In contrast, over 10 million men have initiated chats on the website.

Individuals whose personal details have already been leaked face further anxiety as the hackers behind the original datadump have warned they plan to release tens of thousands of pictures, user chats and private message in the next release of Ashley Madison material.

Police authorities in Canada investigating the leaks have already linked multiple blackmail attempts and a number of suicides to the leak by a group of hackers known as the Impact Team.

Ashley Madison has offered a reward worth almost €350,000 for information which will lead to the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for the leak.

Meanwhile, Avid Life Media, the parent company of Ashley Madison, has insisted the website – whose slogan is “life is short – have an affair” – has never been busier in the aftermath of the hacking scandal.