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Rent paid by Sinn Fein MPs probed
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Five Sinn Fein MPs are facing questions over nearly £500,000 in taxpayers' money which they received for running second homes in London.
They are said to have rented three properties from the same family at rates well above the market norm.
Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness jointly claimed expenses of £3,600 a month to rent a shared two-bedroom flat, but a local estate agent reportedly estimated that a fair monthly rent would be just £1,400.
The three other MPs together claimed £5,400 a month to rent a shared townhouse, which the estate agent suggested was worth around £1,800 a month on the open market. At other times between 2004 and 2008 some of the MPs apparently stayed in a third property, another two-bedroom flat.
The five MPs have claimed more than £310,000 in five years from the public purse by submitting receipts from one man, an Irish landlord living in London, and his family, according to the Telegraph.
A Sinn Fein spokesman denied its MPs had done anything wrong, and stressed they did not purchase properties and benefit from price rises
"It is widely known that Sinn Fein MPs travel regularly to London on Parliamentary business and utilise the accommodation that we rent when there," he said. "The rents we pay on these properties are all inclusive of parking, utilities, housekeeping etc and therefore you are not comparing like with like."
More than two thirds of the public believe the MP expenses scandals have directly hurt the Prime Minister, according to a poll by ICM for the News of the World.
Some 89% of those quizzed warned that people's opinion of MPs had been tarnished, and 91% called for uncensored expenses records to be published in full immediately. More than seven in 10 people did not think MPs should ever be able to claim for a second home - the aspect of their expenses that has caused the most controversy.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey warned that a "culture of abuse" had developed in relation to Westminster expenses, and MPs only had themselves to blame. He wrote: "The moral authority of Parliament is at its lowest ebb in living memory. The latest revelations show it was not just a few MPs with their noses in the trough, but a culture of abuse."
