Oireachtas members who do not make it in to Leinster House due to the extreme weather can apply to be "signed in" and paid generous travel and accommodation expenses even if they stay at home, the Sunday Tribune has learned.

As tens of thousands of workers around the country last week battled severe snow and ice to ensure they got to work, a spokesman for the Houses of the Oireachtas confirmed that TDs and senators were entitled to seek a special exemption from attendance requirements in order to ensure they received their expense payments.

Under recent reforms to the system of expenses, deputies are required to sign in using an electronic attendance system and must attend Leinster House for a minimum of 100 days to get their full travel and accommodation allowances.

But the Oireachtas spokesman said there were a number of scenarios envisioned by the regulations which allowed for the attendance record to be "corrected".

These include "extraordinary circumstances, determined by the Ceann Comhairle or (Seanad) Cathaoirleach, as may be appropriate, to be good and sufficient and which could not have been foreseen by the member.

"In this regard, a member must apply to the Ceann Comhairle or Cathaoirleach as appropriate," he said.

The spokesman said each case would be dealt with "on its merits", meaning it was not possible to say if the recent extreme weather would be considered a good enough reason for an individual to be counted as having attended Leinster House even where they had not done so.

However, the same "extraordinary circumstances" clause was previously invoked by four serving TDs to ensure they were marked present in the Dáil during last April's volcanic ash crisis.

This suggests that any such application arising from the recent bad weather would also be likely to succeed, although it is understood that no such applications had been made by late last week.

Former ceann comhairle John O'Donoghue was among those who successfully applied for an exemption when he was stranded abroad due to the volcanic ash cloud earlier this year.

He resigned his post as ceann comhairle after an earlier series of revelations about his extravagant expenses appeared in this newspaper.

Fine Gael deputy leader James Reilly and his fellow Fine Gael colleagues Jim O'Keeffe and Bernard Allen had also sought and been granted the exemption last April.

All of the TDs in question subsequently revoked their entitlement to the exemption after details of their applications to Ceann Comhairle Seamus Kirk were made public.

Among the other allowable reasons for the Oireachtas attendance record to be "corrected" are attendance abroad or in Ireland by a member in the performance of his or her official duties, and ill-health as certified by a medical practitioner.