'They are all on the take'. 'They do no work'. 'You only see them at election time'.

It must be galling for the average politician to listen to.

The reality is that the vast majority of the politicians in Dail are hard-working, conscientious and decent. Of course, there is an element of ego involved . . . as there is in any profession (though not, ahem, journalism) . . . but many TDs are also genuinely driven by a sense of public service.

As for corruption, while a number of high- and a fair few not-so-high-profile TDs and councillors have dragged politicians' reputation into the gutter, politics is cleaner now than it has been at any time since the 1960s . . . thanks in no small part to the work of the, admittedly hugely flawed, tribunals in Dublin Castle.

People who are willing to go before the public every four or five years for reappointment and who take late-night calls from constituents looking for help because their cars are broken down deserve our admiration and support rather than scorn.

If you've sensed there is a 'but' coming, that's because there is. Twenty years ago, our politicians were particularly badly paid (which should not in any way be seen as justification for those who did wrong) and that situation has been quite rightly addressed. The problem is that it has now gone to the other extreme and Dail Eireann is fast becoming a gravy train with the taxpayer being taken along for a ride.

The basic salary for a TD is on the verge of passing the 100,000 mark (those with more than seven years' experience already exceed that figure). Even by today's standards, that's good money and a seriously hefty rise on the 50,000 they were earning just seven years ago. But that's as it should be. Bearing in mind the old adage about monkeys and peanuts, it would be churlish to argue that the salary should be less.

But it's what politicians earn on top of that that is the problem. There is the range of extremely generous travel and attendance expenses, which work out on average to be around 65,000 a year.

While attending Dail Eireann obviously does involve some expense, particularly for TDs in constituencies far from Dublin, you would need to be living pretty well to justify that kind of expense. In fact, given that the Dail typically sits for less than 100 days a year, it works out at around 650 per TD per sitting day in expenses alone.

Bear in mind this figure is not taxable and doesn't include the allowances that TDs get for telephones, computers etc.

But the vast majority of TDs earn considerably more than this. For starters, there are the 15 members of cabinet along with the Ceann Comhairle who earn between 214,344 and 271,822 (which is probably fair enough). However, the merits of paying 20 junior ministers (can anybody even begin to explain why the country needs 20 ministers of state? ) 147,284, is far less clear.

The 21 committees (again, what possible justification can there be for that number? ) offer financial consolation for those who have missed out on ministerial office.

The chairs of the committees get an annual allowance of 19,058, while the 21 vicechairs are paid 9,747. Most of the committees have a whip and, for bearing this heavy responsibility, they get paid 6,072 a year. There are also nine sub-committees that TDs serve on (including one on orthodontics) and their chairpersons also get a stipend of 6,072.

There are also allowances paid to the various party whips and assistant whips.

The assistant government whip gets 15,255 a year, as does the Labour whip, while the Fine Gael whip gets paid 19,058.

The whips of the smaller parties each get 6,072, while the assistant whips of all the main parties (the PDs with two TDs are technically eligible for a whip and an assistant whip) get payments of between 4,237 and 9,747.

Tot up the sums and it's quickly apparent that those TDs who are aren't bringing in hefty extra moolah on top of their basic and expenses are in a minority.

Between tax-free expenses and committee work, it's possible for a TD to earn a salary that is equivalent to well over 200,000 a year without becoming a minister. And don't even get me started on the Seanad, where politicians (sometimes part-time) get paid 70% of a TD's salary as well as being eligible for generous expenses and committee earners. They don't even have the constituency work that TDs can use as some justification for the minuscule number of days that the Oireachtas sits for each year.

And the good news for our national politicians is that both the review body for higher remuneration in the public sector and the benchmarking body are due to report in the coming weeks. Both have been very generous to politicians in the past. Quite how TDs were awarded an increase under the last benchmarking process, without some agreement on the Dail sitting for extra days shows what a joke the whole benchmarking process was.

It will be fascinating to see what increases, if any, are awarded this time around.

Given that the economy has, to use Brian Cowen's words, reached a "turning point", is it too much to hope that we might also see a turning point in the trend of enormous increases for politicians pay achieved under the Buckley report, benchmarking and various national wage agreements? Sadly, it probably is.