Martin McGuinness will be eligible to claim tens of thousands of pounds in expenses after announcing he will stand down as an MP, despite never taking his seat at Westminster.
The Sinn Fein politician announced he wanted to concentrate on his job as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and his party has a policy to end so-called "double jobbing".
Sinn Fein MPs have long refused to take their seats at Westminster.
The party does not recognise the London parliament's jurisdiction over Northern Ireland.
Despite never taking his seat Mr McGuinness is entitled to claim tens of thousands of pounds in "winding up" costs.
The announcement that he will stand down is sure to reignite the furore around expenses for Sinn Fein MPs.
The Conservatives suggested before the last election they would step in to stop Sinn Fein MPs claiming the payments unless they took their seats.
In the by-election that his resignation has triggered it is expected Mr McGuinness will be succeeded by another Sinn Fein politician. The party's Francie Molloy has already said he will run for the seat.
Mr McGuinness said: "I am resigning as MP but I have no intention of leaving Mid-Ulster."
He was first elected as the MP for the constituency in 1997.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article