Fine Gael presidential hopeful Mairead McGuinness got €800k in EU expenses for costs of office she owns
Mairead McGuinness
claimed hundreds of thousands of euro in MEP expenses for office rent and other costs when using family property in Co Meath as her constituency office.
Ms McGuinness's expenses claims were within European Parliament rules.
But they are seen by some in
Fine Gael
circles as a potential point of discomfort in the autumn presidential election campaign because of the prospect of questions being raised on the matter.
In her 16 years as an MEP, she is estimated to have received more than €800,000 in unvouched 'general allowance' payments to cover 'office rent and management costs' and expenses for phones, computers and other political representation costs.
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During most of that period, Ms McGuinness located her constituency office in a separate building adjacent to her family home at Mentrim near Navan. Land Registry records show she and her husband, Tom Duff, own the office property.
'The Mentrim constituency office enabled her to serve the constituency, and have an easily accessible office for the regular and out of normal office hours' work she engaged in every week as an MEP,' said a spokesman for Ms McGuinness.
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Fine Gael to provide clarity on presidential candidate in 'coming days' after director of elections appointed
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'The office was advertised to the public as her constituency office. Her financial details as an MEP were published on her website and regularly updated, including those in relation to her constituency office.'
Although the presidential election must be held within 60 days of Michael D Higgins leaving office on November 11th, prospective candidates across the political spectrum have been slow to come forward.
However, Ms McGuinness is widely expected to seek Fine Gael's candidacy when the party opens nominations on Monday. She has long been considered one of the most likely contenders and has never ruled herself out.
A former journalist, she made her mark in European politics as a member of the parliament's agriculture and rural development committee.
She became first vice-president of the parliament in 2017 but left in 2020 to become the Republic's EU commissioner in succession to Phil Hogan after the 'Golfgate' affair. Her term as commissioner for financial services ended last year.
According to the European Parliament, the general allowance 'is not paid automatically'. MEPs must request payment.
'Members are free to request all or part of the amount of the allowance, and/or to reimburse amounts that have not been used,' the parliament's rules state.
The monthly payment was set at €3,700 when Ms McGuinness was first elected an MEP in 2004 and had risen to €4,950 when she left in October 2020.
Her website is no longer online, but partial records remain available on archived web pages. She is estimated to have received €222,000 in the 2004-2009 parliamentary term, €255,762 in the 2009-2014 term, €261,192 in the 2014-2019 and €79,200 in 2019-2020.
There was no comment from Ms McGuinness on these figures after they were put to her.
However, she said the constituency office was briefly based in Ardee and, after the 2019 European elections, in Kells. Neither the Ardee nor Kells properties were in the ownership of Ms McGuinness or her family.
'Mentrim was the constituency office for most of Mairead McGuinness's time as an MEP. The general expenditure allowance is a fixed monthly payment made to all MEPs,' the spokesman said.
'In Mairead McGuinness's case, the allowance was paid monthly into a separate account which she opened in 2004 at the start of her mandate. It was expended in accordance with the rules governing such payments,' he added.
'None of the allowance was used other than for servicing the constituency over the 16 years she served as an MEP. No monies were paid to the MEP or her husband for the use of the building.'
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Are prize bonds a good investment? That seems to be the kernel of your query. To be fair, your personal experience, at least until recently, appears to suggest they have been for you. I'm not sure that's a universal view. Certainly, in recent years, prize bond investors have been voting with their feet and walking away. Figures released a couple of weeks ago show that just shy of €351 million of new prize bonds were sold last year. That's a sharp 28 per cent fall on the previous year. That 2023 figure was itself down 20 per cent year-on-year and annual sales are now less than half the €735.7 million sold at the company's peak during Covid in 2020. An even bigger number came from people selling their investments. Requests for repayment came to €538.2 million last year. That is up just over 1 per cent year-on-year but 90 per cent up over the past five years. Having fallen for the first time in a decade in 2023, the overall prize fund fell for a second successive year. For all the company's guff about the figures 'reinforcing the product's long-standing appeal as a unique and secure savings choice', they're clearly worried. The number of prizes awarded last year was up more than 53 per cent and that followed a 31 per cent rise the previous year. There was an even bigger jump in the value of those prizes – 89 per cent last year on top of a 51 per cent rise in 2023 – bringing them to a level not seen since 2012. You talk about changes in the prize structure but those are not that recent. They date back to October 2023 and in fact the number of prizes on offer has increased sharply in recent years as you can see above. The key factor affecting the number of prizes is not the headline figure for prizes at each level but the interest rate that determines the size of the prize fund. This is currently 1 per cent – hardly over generous but almost three times the 0.35 per cent rate that applied immediately before October 2023. The other factor, obviously, is the size of the fund and that, as the figures show, is falling in recent years. Essentially, 1 per cent of the fund is given in prizes each year. As the top prizes – €500 and above – are set, the real difference is in the number of €75 prizes drawn each week. So, what are your odds? With 713.6 million prize bonds in issue at the end of last year, your chances of winning a prize in any draw is comfortably more than 20,000/1 – on the basis of the minimum investment in bonds of €25 for four €6.25 bonds. Winning the weekly jackpot is a 178.4 million-to-one shot. For comparison, the chances of winning the jackpot in the Lotto since 2015 when it was expanded to 47 numbers is one in 10.74 million – although, in fairness, as least you do not lose your stake with the prize bonds. Clearly, the more bonds you hold, the better the odds, though they are still fairly daunting. 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Otherwise, there is a weekly winner of €50,000, 20 winners of €1,000 each, and another 20 who get €500. After that there is a much larger number of winners of €75. How many precisely is based on the size of the price bond fund. As of now, it is 8,781 winners each week. Prizes are paid into your bank account if that is the option you have chosen or, as a default, used to purchase more prize bonds. Part of the issue, especially for people with small holdings of prize bonds, is that they are passive investments, rarely looked at. The Prize Bond Company does notify winners by post and, more recently, by email but if you have not updated your details with the Prize Bond Company – and especially if the bonds were acquired before email details were relevant – any information about winnings may have gone to a long-irrelevant address and the bin. This is especially true, I'm guessing, for people who were not active buyers of bonds but who received them instead as gifts from family. 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