As an MEP, I worked from an office in my home in Dublin, and from offices provided by the European Parliament in its two places of work: Brussels and Strasbourg. When working from Brussels, I shared an apartment using a subsistence allowance that I received from the European Parliament for days spent away from home. The European Parliament hosts a 'plenary' (voting) session in Strasbourg, France, one week out of every month. During this week, I paid for my hotel accommodation using the same subsistence allowance. The European Parliament also paid for the international travel costs incurred for my travel between Dublin, Brussels, and Strasbourg, and for 'additional travel' to attend parliamentary missions and conferences linked to the exercise of my mandate. An overview of European Parliament allowances may be viewed here.

My monthly gross European Parliament salary as an MEP was €10,075.18 (as of 1 July 2023). I paid EU tax and insurance contributions on this, after which the salary was €7,853.89, which was then subject to Irish tax. With my staff budget, I employed four Accredited Parliamentary Assistants and one Intern based in Brussels, and one Local Assistant based in Dublin. More information on MEP salary and staffing arrangements is available here and here. The names of my staff are available here. I was obliged by the rules of the Parliament to employ an Irish ‘Paying Agent’ for my Irish staff, then Armstrong Admin Services Ltd.

As an MEP, my schedule was mostly dictated by the European Parliament's yearly calendar layout. A normal month consists of one plenary (voting) week in Strasbourg, one constituency week in Dublin and two weeks of Committee and Group meetings in Brussels. ‘Group’ meetings refer to meetings of the Greens/EFA, the political group that I sat with in the Parliament as a member of the Irish Green Party. You can find the colour-coded yearly calendar on the European Parliament plenary website here.

As part of my work, my team and I regularly met with civil society, interest groups and lobbyists who wanted to influence the direction of EU policy-making. For transparency, I recorded these meetings publicly on the European Parliament website, linked below. I also ensure that interest representatives that meet with my office are signed up to the EU Transparency Register.

A record of my meetings since 2019 is readily available on the European Parliament website here and here.

MEPs are refunded the actual cost of their travel tickets between Dublin, Brussels and Strasbourg on presentation of receipts and boarding passes. They also cover the costs of parliamentary missions and travelling to conferences which have direct relevance to my Parliamentary work. 

I worked to reduce my carbon footprint by ‘SailRailing’ or travelling by ferry and train to Brussels and Strasbourg. It takes about twelve hours to travel from Dublin Port to Holyhead, by train to London Euston, and then by Eurostar from St. Pancras Station to Brussels South Station.

The Belgian Government provides all MEPs with a travel pass valid for first-class rail transport in Belgium. The European Parliament makes available cars or minibuses and drivers for travel between airports and the Parliament in both Brussels and Strasbourg. I rarely used this service, however, because I prefer to travel by public transport. The Parliament also makes E-Bikes and bicycles available to MEPs and staff, and I used this facility frequently. I offset the carbon cost of my travel by supporting Vita, an Irish charity fighting hunger and climate change in Africa, and through carbon offsets available from Carbon Neutral Now set up by the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change.

A General Expenditure Allowance of up to €54,156 per year is available to MEPs to cover office management costs, telephone and postal charges, and the purchase, operation and maintenance of computers, and other office supplies and equipment.

A breakdown of my use of the General Expenditure Allowance per year is in the table below. Please note that the figures provided for 2023 and 2024 are my estimates while the audits for these years are not yet complete.

I returned any unused amounts of the General Expenditure Allowance to the European Parliament. I carried out an annual audit on my use of the General Expenditure Allowance, and the voluntary declaration of same is on the European Parliament website here.

Additional funding is available to my political group (the Greens/EFA) under the ‘400 budget line’ for expenditure on political and information activities conducted by the group in connection with the European Union’s political activities. I used this facility to carry out research on the Irish tax system, on hidden road subsidies, and on data centre activity in Ireland. I also used this budget to purchase sustainable and/or recycled Greens/EFA branded merchandise.

I hold share units in the following Irish funds: BVP 9th EII, Exergyn, and the Green Effects fund. I am not currently a director of any company.

Previously, I have served as a company director of the following charities:

• The Arts Specialist Support Agency Limited (Blue Drum) Charity Number CHY 14699, which undertook works of a charitable nature beneficial to the community designed to support and enable projects, centres and support agencies in the anti-poverty sector to use creative methods in the furtherance of their anti-poverty, social justice and social change objectives and to enable individuals, groups and communities most disadvantaged by society to access a quality experience. 
• Planning Landscape Architecture Community Environment Limited, (PLACE NI) Company No. NI607231, Registered Charity Number XT30723, which was an independent, not-for-profit organisation with charitable status dedicated to the making of great places across Northern Ireland.
  

I own a building consisting of a shop unit with an overhead apartment at 16 Fade Street, Dublin 2. The apartment is privately rented and registered with the Residential Tenancies Board. The shop unit has been rented at a discounted rate to ‘We Make Good’, a social enterprise that creates job opportunities for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

I serve as president of EUFORES, the European Union Forum On Renewable Energy Sources, an independent non-profit organisation. EUFORES is a European parliamentary network with members from all major political groups in the European Parliament as well as national and regional Parliament members from EU Member States. I am not remunerated for this position.

I am a member of the Advisory Board to ‘Go Green Routes’, an EU-funded project aiming to increase nature-connectedness. It is a multidisciplinary consortium of 40 organisations pairing participatory approaches and citizen science to cocreate "Urban Well-being Labs"in six “Cultivating Cities”: Burgas (Bulgaria), Lahti (Finland), Limerick (Ireland), Tallinn (Estonia), Umeå (Sweden) and Versailles (France).

I have been a member of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, the Royal Town Planning Institute and I am currently a member of the Irish Planning Institute. 

My Declaration of Financial Interests is on the European Parliament website here.

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