Politicians received their fourth pay rise in a year at the beginning of last month, bringing the basic salary of a TD with 10 years in the Dáil to 96,560 before special allowances and expenses are taken into account.
For the Taoiseach and his Ministers, it was the sixth pay rise over the past 12 months. Mr Ahern's salary is now €258,730 a year, including his TD's salary, while the Tánaiste earns 222,256 and other members of the Cabinet get 204,020.
Last month's pay rise of 2.5 per cent, which applied across the Civil Service, was paid under part two of the mid-term review of "Sustaining Progress".
It was paid on the basis of verified "co-operation with flexibility and ongoing change, satisfactory implementation of the agenda for modernisation, maintenance of stable industrial relations and absence of industrial action in respect of any matters covered by the 'Sustaining Progress' agreement".
The Civil Service Performance Verification Group and the Justice and Equality Sector Performance Verification Group approved the pay rise on the basis that these conditions had been met.
No verification was required in respect of TDs' pay, which increased automatically by 2.5 per cent in line with the pay rise given to the civil servants.
Since June of last year, TDs have received three pay increases under "Sustaining Progress" and one under benchmarking.
The Taoiseach and his Ministers got two extra pay increases under a special pay award for public servants who did not qualify for benchmarking, even though they had received the benchmarking increase on the TD's portion of their pay.
Following the latest pay increase, the basic pay for a TD is €90,770, which rises to €93,667 after six years and to €96,560 after 10. Senators get between €63,539 and 67,593.
The 2.5 per cent increase also applies to the pensions of retired politicians and civil servants.
