The DUP was last night challenged after criticising the £200,000 payments to the policing oversight commissioner, while the party's assembly members claimed £253,000 in Stormont travel expenses over a two-year period.
On Monday the DUP's Nigel Dodds accused the government of "squandering" public money after it was revealed that police oversight commissioner Tom Constantine has been paid almost £200,000 since his appointment three years ago.
The MP for North Belfast claimed that the money paid to Mr Constantine would have been better spent on health and education.
"This is but the latest example of the profligate use of public money in bolstering the various institutions and offices which derive from the Belfast Agreement," Mr Dodds said.
A Northern Ireland Office spokesman defended the payments to Mr Constantine, saying he had spent 300 days working as oversight commissioner in the last three years – with more than two-thirds of this time spent in America compiling and writing his reports.
Now SDLP assembly member Alban Maginness has questioned the DUP's concern over public spending after it was revealed that the party's assembly members claimed £253,758 in Stormont travel expenses in just two years. Mr Maginness last night said that "politicians in glass houses shouldn't throw stones".
"I would have hoped that Nigel Dodds would have agreed with the vast majority of right thinking people who know that payment to Tom Constantine is money well spent, when this society is striving for a new beginning to policing," he said.
"The fact that Tom Constantine's position means that he is unable to defend himself also says a lot for this unwarranted attack."
But Mr Dodds last night rejected Mr Maginness's comparisons between payments to Mr Constantine and travel expenses claimed by the DUP.
"Travel expenses for assembly members are totally irrelevant when it comes to the appointment of someone who has only been in the province for 99 days in the last three years," Mr Dodds said.
"Alban Maginness and the SDLP claimed their travel expenses like the other assembly members and they were perfectly entitled to do so," he said.
"But people, regardless of whether they are pro-agreement or anti-agreement, are asking themselves if this police oversight commissioner is good value for money.
"I would suspect there are not many people who will believe that the sort of money being spent, in return for the terms of work Tom Constantine is carrying out, can be justified."
