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The Oireachtas committee responsible for scrutinising TDs and senators’ expenses met just once last year – and didn’t sit even after finding a third of sampled members couldn’t account for their expenses.
The audit commission is required to meet four times a year under its terms of reference but it only held a single meeting in 2025, according to its annual report.
The Ditch has previously reported on junior ministers unusually high expenses. In 2023 Niall Collins and in 2024 Josepha Madigan couldn’t account for ministerial mileage claims that didn’t match their official diaries.
Collins claimed 2,917 kilometres in ministerial mileage for August 2021 but his diary showed just 170 kilometres of ministerial work that month. He was later asked about a 2022 claim too – roughly 6,000 kilometres claimed against a diary showing a sixth of that. He declined to address either.
Madigan’s diaries showed little or no ministerial activity for four Augusts in a row despite claims of between 900 and 1,900 kilometres each time.
To the extent that it was possible
According to the report the audit committee wasn’t filled until June 2025 – more than six months after the November 2024 general election.
Its members include TDs Pearse Doherty and Seán Fleming, senator Victor Boyhan, external members Noreen Fahy and Vincent Teo and service staff Mairéad Keating.
During its one sitting in July 2025 the committee reviewed the results of an independent audit of Oireachtas members’ expenses for 2023.
Of 22 members randomly sampled, seven couldn’t produce sufficient documentation for expenses claimed, and €7,088 was repaid to the Oireachtas as a result, the Irish Times reported.
Despite having found that a third of audited members couldn’t produce documentation for their expenses the committee didn’t meet again for the rest of the year.
Minutes of its single July 2025 meeting show its next sitting was set for 13 November. But that meeting never took place.
Writing in the annual report, chair Noreen Fahy set out plans for 2026.
She also acknowledged the committee did not fully uphold its statutory obligations last year, though maintained it had done what it could.
“The committee is satisfied that it has discharged its statutory remit during 2025, pursuant to Section 14A of the Commission Acts, to the extent that this was possible given that the committee was only able to meet on one occasion during the year,” she wrote.
The committee has existed since 2010. It was set up under the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Acts and it monitors governance at the Oireachtas.
The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission has been contacted for comment.
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