The DUP has been challenged to explain a party payment towards its constituency office operation in its Ballymena heartland.

Questions are being asked on whether a £25,000 party contribution should have reduced hefty running cost sums being claimed from the public purse.

Taxpayers are still footing £57,000-a-year rental bills for the DUP's Ballymena office, despite an Assembly report deeming this figure to be well above market rate.

The advice centre at 9-11 Church Street has been jointly operated by ex-party leader Ian Paisley and his MLA son Ian Jnr since 2007.

It is owned by a specially created DUP-linked company and rental expenses claimed from the Assembly are paying off the mortgage.

In its recently-published annual accounts for 2008, the party's north Antrim association records a £25,000 payment for refurbishment of “DUP office Ballymena”.

This followed an indication from Mr Paisley Jnr that the association was considering a £25,000 contribution, due to its use of the centre's meeting room facilities.

TUV leader Jim Allister has now called on the DUP to spell out the facts of the situation.

He asked: “Did it pay £25,000 towards Church Street? If so, to whom, when and for what — and with what knock-on effect on the drain on the public purse for the upkeep and rent of these premises?”

The quarterly rental totals claimed from the Assembly by the two DUP politicians add up to £14,300, which works out at £57,200 per year.

A Stormont standards report published on May 1 this year said the £57,200 figure was “significantly in excess of what might be regarded as a normal market rent”.

Four days after this report was issued, the Assembly shelled out a further £14,300 for three months rent for the premises. Another £14,300 was issued in August.

The Paisleys’ arrangement is not against the rules, as the current rulebook does not tie MLA rental expenses to market values.

The Church Street rental sum has been defended on the basis of the fit-out costs incurred by the landlord company. The local DUP Association has now stated that it made a £25,000 refurbishment payment last year.

The May 1 report, by Stormont Standards Commissioner Tom Frawley, detailed discussions on the arrangements held with Mr Paisley Jnr in October 2008.

It stated: “Mr Paisley also explained that as the Democratic Unionist Party used the large upstairs area for some Association business it was considering making a contribution of £25,000 towards the overall cost of the accommodation.”

As well as rent, taxpayers have paid for furniture for the Church Street office, including 100 stacking chairs costing some £2,000.

Responding to Mr Allister’s challenge, a DUP spokesman did not answer the ex-MEP’s questions on the office funding.

He called on the TUV leader to publish a full breakdown of expenses claimed from the European Parliament “including full details of how much money members of his family received”.

The DUP spokesman also said: “The expenses regime for MEPs has now changed, so a retrospective look at what MEPs were able to spend their expenses on during the previous ‘fundamentally flawed’ system would allow the same rectitude to be brought on that expenditure as is being sought from others.”

Mr Allister has stated that his MEP expenses were published on his website, and that the DUP had no objection to the expenses regime when he represented it in Europe, prior to his 2007 resignation from the party over the Stormont power-sharing deal.

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The DUP Ballymena advice centre has been costing taxpayers some three times more than any other MLA's office.

The money is claimed under the Office Cost Allowance for Assembly members and is paid to a company headed by a DUP councillor.

A Stormont report concluded: “Effectively, the Office Cost Allowance is being used to create a property asset for a political party.”

The DUP has now been asked why a £25,000 party donation towards its Ballymena office operations did not reduce the public purse's overall contribution.