Archive for August, 2010
Ivor’s expenses
There has been a lot said and written about the now disgraced Fianna Fail Senator Ivor Callely. He has protested he is the victim of a media witch hunt.
It is true he has been the focus of journalists’ attempts to expose the corrupt culture of easy expenses paid as a type of top up to our already overpaid politicians.
And therein is the problem. During the boom many in public service complained that they were grossly underpaid when compared with their “colleagues” in the private sector.
And so a culture was allowed to grow where it became normal practise to pay generous expenses, often unvouched, to politicians but also executives in state employment.
There was a belief that if we can’t pay the going rate then we will make up the gap through expenses and, wait for it, bonuses.
The latter is farcical. Many HSE and local authority executives have received large bonuses, worse, still do. For what you may ask? But the practise is widespread.
As tens of thousands of men and women have lost their jobs in the private sector surely the public servants must now accept that having a permanent, pensionable job is actually the greatest job perk anyone can have.
Many teachers have seen their pay cut by about 12%. That’s a hefty pay cut, especially, if like most of us, you were living beyond your means and on top of that have a big mortgage. In such circumstances any pay cut bites deep and really hurts.
But the reality is our teachers are, even after the pay cuts, some of the best paid in Europe. They work very hard but, because of the nature of their job, have months of holidays over the year.
Compared to the private sector worker who has already seen take home pay cut by as much as twenty per cent and works 49 weeks of the year but, probably, spends 52 weeks worrying will he or she have a job next year, the public sector worker has by far the best job terms.
The so called ‘witch hunt’ that Ivor Callely is complaining of is of his own making.
No-one forced him to provide allegedly false mobile phone expenses and if it all serves to get rid of politicians who believe there is one rule for them and another for the rest of us and also ends the easy expenses culture in the public sector, well then I say it is a job well done.
Jet setting Minister Dempsey
Sticking with expenses journalist Ken Foxe of the Sunday Tribune has done the nation great service exposing the irregularities of the expenses system that has benefitted our elected representatives.
His latest target is Minister Noel Dempsey who used the Government jet to fly to the MacGill Summer School. Such an act cannot be justified. I genuinely believe if the punishment was that an offending politician who has wasted resources in such an ostentatious fashion was then forced to pay the bill from their own pocket that would put a stop to all these expensive capers.
But the latest revelation about Noel Dempsey is that he received cash payments as apparently a type of spending money to have when he was going on foreign trips. Is this fair?
A cash advance would be paid to the Minister and then he would spend the money on accommodation and “entertaining” and claim it back.
Now if a Government Minister is abroad and he buys a drink or a meal, “entertains”, someone our country is doing business with should that not be legitimately claimed as an expense?
Jetting to the MacGill talking shop at taxpayers’ expense is unforgivable but it is justifiable to pay some spending money in advance to a Minister going on a foreign trip if that money is then accounted for by receipts which must be submitted and recorded after the trip.
The next assignment for Ken Foxe must be to look at the state employees of RTE and examine their expenses.
For example, journalists talk a lot about balance and fairness. So why doesn’t Ken do a quick trawl on the last five RTE Washington Correspondents just to have a look at their expenses and what they claimed.
I have no doubt the journalists will be seen to be squeaky clean compared to the politicians they report on.
But wouldn’t it be nice to get that assurance and further wouldn’t it be nice to see journalists applying the same high standards to themselves as they expect of all others?
Tune in to Radio 1 from Monday.
Finally, just a bit of news regarding myself. This Monday, the 16th, and for three weeks, I am presenting from 9am to ten each morning on RTE Radio One.
Ryan Tubridy is off preparing for his new show that takes over from the late Gerry Ryan on 2FM. So I am the fill-in before John Murray takes to the airwaves with his new show on September 6th.
I think John is an inspired choice and hopefully will prove to be a winner for RTE in the mornings.
Along with being on Radio One each morning I am building up to my big quarter final clash as part of RTE television’s Celebrity Bainisteoir. That takes place on August 21st.
I can’t believe I am taking it so seriously. I am waking up each morning thinking about where I will play certain players. My team is Roche Emmets from County Louth and we are drawn against Kilconly of Galway, managed by the star of last year’s The Apprentice, Breffni Morgan.
I love football, any type of football. But my first love has always been Gaelic football. I just love the GAA, the parish club and its significance to community life in rural Ireland and now I am living it and loving it.
I will be broken hearted if we don’t win this big game Saturday week. Am I feeling the pressure? You bet I am. Before that hopefully you will be kind enough to listen out for me on Radio 1 from Monday. Talk to you then, bye for now.