Belfast councillors had more than £4,500 deducted from their wages over the past four years due to overspends on their mobile phone bills.
It emerges following a high-profile standards watchdog probe involving a former councillor whose pay was docked for exceeding her mobile phone data limit.
Jolene Bunting was banned from becoming a councillor again for three years after it was found she doctored a council payslip to claim cash from a far-right group.
