Teachta Dála

history

A Teachta Dála () is a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas (Parliament) of Ireland. The official translation of Teachta Dála is Deputy to the Dáil, a more literal translation is Assembly Delegate. In English the abbreviation TD is normally used, with TDs as the plural ().

History

The term was first used to describe those Irish parliamentarians73 out of 105 seats won in Ireland at the 1918 general election were by Sinn FĂ©in members. Unionist and Irish Parliamentary Party members refused to recognise the Dáil, and so did not attend. that were elected at the 1918 general election, who rather than attending the British House of Commons in London, to which they had been elected, assembled instead in Dublin's Mansion House on 21 January 1919 to create a new Irish parliament: Dáil Éireann. The term continued to be used after this "First Dáil" and was used to refer to later members of the Irish Republic's single chamber Dáil Éireann (or "Assembly of Ireland") (1919–1922), members of Dáil Éireann (or "Chamber of Deputies") of the Irish Free State (1922–1937), and Dáil Éireann (or the "House of Representatives") of Ireland.

Style

The initials "TD" are placed after the surname of the elected TD. For example, the current Taoiseach (head of government) is "Brian Cowen, TD". The style used to refer to individual TDs during debates in Dáil Éireann is the member's name preceded by Deputy (): for example, "Deputy Kenny", "an Teachta Ó Cionnaith".

Salaries and expenses

  • Basic Salary: €100,191
  • Mobile Phone Allowance: A maximum of €750 every 18 months
  • Constituency Office maintenance allowance: €8,888.17
  • Constituency Travel Allowance: ranging from €2,475 to €8,782 depending on size of constituency
  • Daily Allowance: €61.53 for members who live within 24 km from Leinster House
  • Miscellaneous expense allowance: €5,489.08

See also

References


home | This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. See full license termsIt uses material from the Wikipedia article "Teachta_D%C3%A1la ". | compliance | March 18th 2010