The stand-out story, that TDs are now paid an average of 103,500 a year, which works out at over 1,000 per day spent in the Dail, gives further ammunition to the many critics of the country's politicians.

It is clear that the old days of politicians being underpaid are well and truly over. While no doubt many of them would earn more as barristers, solicitors and business owners, when extremely generous expenses are thrown in, a Dail deputy can today live very comfortably on his earnings from politics.

That is how it should be.

The old adage about paying peanuts and getting monkeys should be remembered by those who argue that politicians are overpaid. There are enough disincentives to the best and the brightest to get involved in politics without adding a financial one as well.

There is no doubt that the vast majority of politicians put in extraordinarily long hours. Effectively they are never off duty.

There are stories of TDs being phoned on Christmas Day by constituents with a problem with their heating. That is obviously an extreme example, but there are few other jobs where a person can't go out for a meal or a drink on a Saturday night without the likelihood of being approached on a work-related matter.

That is the lot of a typical politician and those who say TDs don't work hard are simply wrong.

But there is a certainly a question mark as to whether we are getting value for the money we pay them. Is it worth giving 100,000plus a year to TDs if the Dail sits for only 97 days a year? In reality, much of the hard, time-consuming work done by Dail deputies is more suited to county councillors and is largely geared towards ensuring that he or she is returned at the next general election. The national interest and common good simply don't figure.

It's impossible to blame TDs for doing that. History shows us that TDs who don't do the work on the ground in the constituency will generally not be returned.

That is an unavoidable consequence of having multi-seat constituencies, where a colleague on the party ticket is often a bigger rival than the person from an opposing political party.

With competition so fierce, many highprofile TDs (including, almost unbelievably, the taoiseach) have, for the past year, been spending hour upon hour every weekend knocking on doors to canvass support for a general election that is still seven months away. Is that what we want from our TDs? Is that really the best use of their time and energy?

Bertie Ahern doesn't go into the Dail on a Thursday because he knows there is more to be gained by getting out and about and meeting people.

The other downside of our electoral system is that, because a seat can be decided by a handful of votes, vested interests wield a disproportionate influence at the expense of the common good. Time after time the government has backed down on an important issue when opposed by a well-organised group . . . publicans, farmers, and unions to name but a few. The common good is less important than not alienating a minority that might vote against the government at the next general election.

Last week's ban on drift-net fishing was a welcome exception to that trend.

The government got tough for once. But that was probably more to do with the fact that the minister involved, Noel Dempsey, is one of the few politicians around with the cojones to do the right thing regardless of the consequences. Given that the government previously bottled out on cuts in the use of nitrate fertilisers . . . also a factor in the decline of salmon stocks . . . it suggests that fishermen simply didn't have the same clout as the farming sector. It would be naive to believe this is the start of a new form of government where the common good of the majority is recognised.

We have always been quite smug in our belief that our multi-seat constituency, single transferable vote system is vastly superior to the single seat constituency, first-past-the-post system used in Britain.

The argument has been that our system produced much greater proportionality than Britain's, where a government could win a thumping majority with less than 40% of the vote.

But how justified is this smugness?

There may be a greater correlation between votes won and seats gained by a party, but is the result really more proportional? Is the silent majority catered for in our system? Could anyone really imagine Tony Blair delaying bringing in badly-needed extra driving testers or building a new airport terminal when Heathrow was stuffed to the rafters because of union opposition? Would publicans in Britain have enough clout to face down cafe bars? Would Blair tolerate one of his ministers opposing an incinerator in his constituency without coming up with an alternative for disposing of our waste?

The British electoral system of which we are so scathing means that Tony Blair is much freer to follow policies that favour the majority and face down vested interests. The opposite is often true here.

When the main opposition party, Fine Gael, believes it is politically advantageous to favour the few over the many . . .

ignoring blatant scientific advice and opposing measures to ban drift-net fishing . . . it is clear that something is wrong.

For 17m a year in TD salaries, we deserve better. But the problem isn't with our politicians; it is with our system.