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A simpler solution would be that anybody who wins an election but fails to take up their seat would forfeit their seat with the seat passing to the person placed second.

The purpose of an election to a public office is to find the most popular candidate who wishes to stand for a particular office, not to elect someone who may not wish to take up the office.

The answer to your question at least at the moment is yes. It's enough to make you weep that this situation was ever allowed to arise.

They have, of course, also received about £600,000 each in salary plus travel and staff "expenses".

It was all part of a bribe organised by Blair and Mandelson, both of whom know too well the allure of lucre.

" Sinn Fein - or anyone else-should not be paid parliamentary salaries or be allowed to claim expenses while they refuse to take their seats in parliament.”

ie before they have taken the parliamentary oath
and therefore should not be allowed to gain access to the pay, pensions or allowances of MP's.

So bruddy obvious that the gentleman's club missed it.

I'd like to see our leadership undertake that they will stop this particular abuse immediately following the next election.

Clearly there's no stomach for doing unto the present Sinn Fein as Cumann na nGaedhael did unto Fianna Fail with the Electoral Amendment Act in 1927 ...

It's harder to object to the excessive expenses claimed by MPs who don't turn up to attend select committee business if one's prepared to permit expenses for MPs who undertake no legislative business at Westminster at all!

A new variant on an old tradition:

Claim early, claim often.

How can one talk of Sinn Féin and principles in the same sentence?

"Sinn Féin MPs should end their boycott of Westminster and represent their constituents OR lose their taxpayer-funded allowances."

Exactly right. As always they are abusing our parliamentary system. GSTQ

Claim early and claim often? Is this the "Armalite and Additional Costs Allowance" strategy?

"A simpler solution would be that anybody who wins an election but fails to take up their seat would forfeit their seat with the seat passing to the person placed second.

The purpose of an election to a public office is to find the most popular candidate who wishes to stand for a particular office, not to elect someone who may not wish to take up the office." - Mark Williams.

Absolutely right.

I'm not apologising for their position, which is obviously taking the proverbial; but, is it that much more ridiculous than two MPs from our own party paying off their second home mortgage with the allowance, then gifting it to the family trust and using taxpayer money to pay the "rent"?

As I say, I am no fan of Sinn Fein, but we need to be careful not to stand in the middle of a glass house and play catch with a brick.

Are you all mad? We should worry about Sinn Fein when they stop taking the Queen's coin, not before.

The British are, in essence, buying peace in Northern Ireland. Robinson and his wife are raking it in. So are the Shinners.

This might make us uncomfortable, but it's reality. It gives us a point of leverage. I'd much rather have them financially beholden to us than not.

You won't get any change out of Sinn Fein/IRA.

What about their hopeless denounciation of the recent killings in Northern Ireland.

Fine for them some years ago wasn't it?

This is not a new issue - it's just been brought to a wider audience by the Mail.
Sadly, it is just one more example of the constant appeasement of Irish republicanism practiced under Tony Blair's premiership.

This brings us back to making expenses totaly transparent.
Pay expenses only against reciepts that way two married MPs cannot claim for the second house that they both live in (extra care that they do not claim for two different second homes). The second home should be the one that they use to attend Parliament since their first home is the one that they lived in prior to being an MP. If they do not attend Parliament then they have no need of a second home and should get nothing.
All this is just 'plain old common sense' unfortunately our leaders seem to be in short supply of this useful commodity

Worrying about Sinn Fein is totally missing the point. They, nor the people who elect them, care what you think.

The point is that OUR MPs are taking us for a ride, and justifying it. They're the problem, not SF. You'd expect as much from them, not from the likes of Derek Conway.

I'm surprised at how out of date the msm and "main" politcal parties can get.
Gordon has promised The Northern Irish Assembly £50bn over the next seven years.
Half a million is chicken feed.
The "English" NHS pays hundreds of millions of punds to Ireland, as a whole, to look after the "British" Pensioner "diaspora".
WTF.

The lesson here is that, whatever abuses any politician ever commits, "Nobody does it better" than Sinn Fein.

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