IT’S a politically toxic issue. How much is an MLA worth? Should we pay our politicians more?

The answer rests upon fundamental ideas about politics, economics, and societal assumptions about the relative status and rewards of different occupations.

The Independent Remuneration Board has proposed raising MLA salaries from £53,000 to £67,200 from April 2026, a rise of 26.8 per cent.

This proposed new salary would put MLAs roughly in the top 10% of earners here.

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Furthermore, £67,200 will be their base pay. If they assume additional responsibility (eg minister, committee chair, etc) they will be paid more.

Public reaction on a range of platforms was swift and hostile. There was outrage and incredulity that this could even be considered, with many critics suggesting they were already overpaid and underperforming.

Politics is about timing and reading the public mood. Raising salaries exponentially in a cost-of-living crisis is tone-deaf.

With public sector workers in the civil service, health, education and the police having had to fight tooth and nail for modest increases, as public services are collapsing, the optics of this could hardly be worse.

Trust and confidence is already on the floor and this risks pushing it even lower.

The justification for this from the chair of the pay review body is that MLA pay has increased marginally since 2016, and if salaries had been uplifted in line with inflation they would already being paid somewhere within this ball........

© The Irish News