'Understandable anger' over MLAs' £14,000 pay rise

Anger at a proposed pay rise of £14,000 for Stormont politicians is "understandable", First Minister Michelle O'Neill has said.

She was speaking a day after the independent remuneration board, which sets salaries for MLAs, proposed an uplift of almost 27% from this April.

Unions including the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Police Federation of Northern Ireland have expressed concerns about the plan.

Rita Devlin, director of the RCN in Northern Ireland, said MLAs must "do better" to justify their pay increase.

On Friday, O'Neill said MLAs had "no part to play" in the recommendations and that parties would take time to look at them.

The board is seeking feedback from MLAs until 5 March, before presenting a final determination.

The first minister said: "We need to work our way through the detail but we absolutely acknowledge there's a cost of living crisis, people are feeling the pinch right now so it's understandable in terms of how people would feel about it."

Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said the proposals would be looked at "in detail", and pointed to the fact that similar determinations have been made in other parts of the UK.

The RCN director said she had no issue with MLAs getting "parity" with their political counterparts in the rest of the UK, but said they had to demonstrate they were making life better for people in Northern Ireland.

Devlin also questioned how quickly MLAs would receive the money, when nurses have previously had to threaten strike action to get their pay uplifts promised by the Northern Ireland Executive.

"Will MLAs have to wait a year and threaten to go on strike to get the money or will it slide into their pay packet very quickly?" Devlin asked.

"And what are they doing to deserve that increase because they need to be better, we depend on the politicians of Northern Ireland to make life better and I don't see that happening at the minute."

MLAs currently earn £53,000 a year, which is less than their counterparts in the UK's other devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales.

Members of the Scottish Parliament receive £74,507 while members of the Welsh Parliament earn £76,380.

At Westminster, MPs earn £93,904 a year while members of the Dáil (lower house of the Irish parliament) earn €118,284 (£103,416).

Earlier, the former chair of the previous body that set pay levels and expenses for MLAs said the rise was "fully justified".

Pat McCartan was one of three members of the Independent Financial Review Panel (IFRP).

But the terms of the three panel members ended in 2016 and they were never replaced.

The new panel came into operation last year after new legislation was passed.

McCartan told BBC's Good Morning Ulster he was in "no doubt at all" that the board had got the figure for the proposed rise correct.

He acknowledged that there could be fewer than 90 MLAs and that popularity in politicians was low.