RTÉ's Europe Editor Sean Whelan takes a look at the attendance register and a new website that tracks voting records of MEPs.
The European Parliament has published the official attendance register of MEPs for all the plenary sessions.
The register is broken down by each individual member, and shows their attendance at the plenary sessions in Brussels and Strasbourg, during which MEPs vote on legislation.
Attendance at committees and party group meeting is not recorded.
The information is contained on the pages that display the personal profile of each MEP.
These pages also contain the speeches, motions amendments and reports made by each member, thus serving as a guide to what they did during the past five years.
There is also the latest register of members' interest declarations.
The attendance records do not take account of illness, maternity leave or other reasons for absence.
The pages can be found here.
The information contained has been used by academic researchers from the London School of Economics and the European Policy Centre in Brussels to compile a ranking of MEPs based on their attendance and work output.
votewatch.eu also displays what it claims is a complete voting record of members over the past five years, which is searchable by individual member and individual vote.
Both sites are a very useful insight into the work of MEPs and allow members of the public to see exactly what their elected representatives have been doing.
The sites also offer a comparison with what other members from other countries have been doing.
Irish attendence
According to the European Parliament website, the attendance rate for Irish members at Plenary session (where the whole parliament votes) from July 2004 to March 2009 is:
Sean Ó Neachtain 94%
Brian Crowley 94%
Kathy Sinnott 93%
Liam Aylward 91%
Gay Mitchell 88%
Avril Doyle 87%
Marian Harkin 87%
Jim Higgins 86%
Colm Burke 85%
Eoin Ryan 83%
Prionsias De Rossa 83%
Mary Lou McDonald 73% (see below)
The attendance rate shown on the European Parliament website for the Dublin Sinn Féin MEP was 56%, or 162 out of 289 session days.
Sinn Féin said this did not reflect the fact that Mary Lou McDonald was on maternity leave for a part of this period.
The party obtained the official attendance register (which apparently can only be obtained by individual members about their own attendance). This list has been seen by RTÉ News. It shows an additional 45 days marked with an E for excused attendance out of a total number of session days of 286 (this list does not count the July 2004 session, but does count the April 2009 session).
By adding the 45 excused days to the 162 attended days, Sinn Féin arrived at an attendance rate of 73%.
An alternative method would be to subtract the 45 days from the total (i.e. 286), giving the maximum number of sessions she could have attended (241) and expressing the actual attendance (162) as a percentage – 67.2%.
Both figures are substantially higher than the 56% on the website, which does not take any account of Ms McDonalds maternity leave. (Nor for that matter does it take account of any other legitimate reasons for not attending, such as being on official parliamentary delegations to other countries, or being ill etc).
Other things to take into account when looking at a MEPs record are the legislative reports and shadow reports they have written, notably those involving actual legislation (rather than ‘own initiative’ reports, which do not lead to laws being made). Amendments to legislation are also a measure of activity (as any MEP can put down an amendment in their own name), as are parliamentary questions, motions for resolution and speeches in plenary. Much behind the scenes work also takes place in committee and group meetings, but the records for these are not yet available.
Irish MEPs generally have a good attendance record, coming in the middle of the attendance range with a national average of 86.08%.
The Austrians are on top, with 92.71%, while the Italians (who are also the best paid) are bottom of the list, on 71.93%. Only Italy and Romania have a national attendance rate of less then 80%.
The Irish MEPs have a better attendance record than the members from France and Belgium, home to the Parliaments two seats (85.09% and 84.7% respectively).
Dublin loses a seat
The issue of attendance at the European Parliament became controversial on RTE’s Saturday View, which featured a debate between the four sitting Dublin MEPs.
Due to the enlargement of the EU, a number of countries are losing seats in the next parliament to make room for extra members from Bulgaria and Romania.
Ireland is dropping one seat from the Dublin constituency, which becomes a three seater like all the other Irish constituencies.
With four sitting members chasing three seats, Dublin is the most dramatic contest in the European Parliament elections in Ireland.
Like a game of musical chairs, one of the four will lose their seat and that tension was evident throughout Saturday's debate.
Listen to the full programme here
