Irish MEPs could see their salaries almost double if the recommendations of a group of independent experts are accepted by the European Parliament.
However, the panel, which reported to the Parliament yesterday, said no MEP would be any better off because of restraints on the way expenses would be paid.
Irish MEPs, currently on £38,000 a year, the same as TDs, would see their salaries rise to £70,000 under the recommendation, a common rate for all 626 MEPs. However, expenses for flights, traditionally paid at a high fixed rate, irrespective of cost, would only be reimbursed at actual cost.
Irish MEPs make several hundred pounds a month by travelling economy to Brussels and Strasbourg, but argue that the cost of maintaining their constituencies absorb the savings.
That loophole, plus other flat-rate expense allowances that require no receipts, has enabled many deputies to almost double their income.
Because MEPs' salaries are based on the rates paid to their national deputies, Italian MEPs earn as much as £92,500 a year, while their Spanish counterparts get £27,000 and the Swedes £31,000.
In submitting their findings to the European Parliament's President, Ms Nicole Fontaine, the six-member panel portrayed MEPs as the hardest-working parliamentarians in Europe.
"One should not compare the European Parliament too much with national parliaments," said the panel's chairman, Mr Niels Ersbol, a former secretary general of the Council of Ministers.
MEPs face "much more difficult working conditions", he said, including a tight schedule of meetings and a monthly shuttle between Brussels and the Parliament's official home in Strasbourg, five hours away by train.
For Irish MEPs that means almost two full days of travel to and from the Parliament every month.
Mr Ersbol said the independent panel's recommended salary level was based on an average of the salaries paid to deputies of the four biggest EU member states - Germany, France, Britain and Italy.
The recommendations of the report now go to the heads of parliamentary groups and, if agreed by Parliament, to heads of government who have for some time been making clear to MEPs they expect them to put their house in order.
Parliamentary sources expected the package to be approved by MEPs but only after facing opposition from some member-states.
MEPs' expenses consist of a daily attendance allowance of £190, a monthly general office expense of £2,630, a monthly secretarial allowance of £7,812, and a monthly special travel allowance of £1,900.
The report recommends that MEPs should forfeit three-quarters of the daily attendance allowance if they are not present for 75 per cent of the votes.
