More than €65m has been paid out in pensions to former politicians in the four years since the last general election.
A detailed analysis of all payments made by both the Houses of the Oireachtas and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform by the RTÉ Investigations Unit shows that an average of €1.37m has been paid out every month over the past four years.
Some politicians choose not to accept certain payments, and that is reflected in this detailed database created by the RTÉ Investigations Unit.
However, some may also have opted to gift a portion of their pension back to the State and in some cases that has not been included in the official figures that were obtained by RTÉ.
All of the records in the database were released by the Oireachtas and Department of Public Expenditure and Reform under Freedom of Information legislation.
However, subsequent “gifting” is considered personal information and is not included in these releases.
Some politicians including President Michael D Higgins are known to return at least some, if not all, of their pensions.
The pensions are paid out to more than 350 individual politicians, including former Taoisigh, Ministers, TDs, Senators, and in a few cases the spouses of deceased former members.
Sixteen people were paid in excess of €500,000 each during the period from 2011 to 2014.
You can view the full database of political pensions here.
The largest pension pot was paid to the former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who according to the figures has received €726,419 in the period between March 2011 and the end of 2014.
That includes his annual TD pension, which is paid by the Oireachtas, his Ministerial pension, paid by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and also lump sum and termination payments, which were made in 2011.
Following Mr Ahern on the list is another former Taoiseach, Fianna Fáil's Brian Cowen who has been paid €726,367 according to the figures.
His payments mirror almost exactly those of Mr Ahern and his pension - both ministerial and Oireachtas combined - is worth €134,379 annually.
Next on the list is the former tánaiste Mary Harney, who according to the figures was paid €647,406.
Her annual pension is currently worth €116,987, which is almost €13,000 less than she was being paid in 2012 due to a series of budgetary cuts, which have seen payments for all retired politicians reduced.
The fourth highest payments were made to former minister Michael Woods, who received a total of €632,967 between March 2011 and December 2014.
That reflects his long years both as a TD and also in a variety of ministerial roles over the course of more than 20 years.
Read more on the cost of political pensions here.
