I have worked in the civil service and in semi state bodies. If you had to travel to a neighbouring district you got £12 for a lunch, no receipts needed. If you had to work beyond 7pm you were entitled to £14 for your dinner, again no receipts needed. People came to rely on these payments as part of their wages and woe betide anyone who did not claim them. I forgot one week to claim and the boss filled them in anyways.
€80,000 to travel from one part of Dublin to the other. Even if the senate sat for 52 weeks of the year this would amount to €1600 approx per week. Should Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) be called in?
I was wondering why the other parties have been relatively quiet over Ivor. Look at the excerpt below from yesterday's Sunday Tribune. These guys are really taking the p***. It is madness that anybody is paid extra on top of their salaries just to go to work! These guys have been in cohoots together across all party lines to maximize earnings. The electorate should boot them out at the next election.
"Dublin-based Fine Gael health spokesman James Reilly claimed more than €32,000 – an average of €1,800 a month – for travel and subsistence despite having a home in Rush, just 18 miles from Dáil Éireann."
We should not give up on this, The article in yesterdays Mail on Sunday about what ex taoisighs claim was sickening and yet we are expected to make sacrifices to get the country out of the mess they made of it. You would think they had some shame but not a bit.
I suspect that their cars run on rocket fuel, they only eat Lobster Thermadore and Caviar and the mobile phones must be on the most expensive pay as you go Tariff how else could the grotesque sums claimed be explained ?
So now its revealed that Callely claimed overnight expenses while he stayed at his house in Dublin! This is pure fraud! Why is he not being charged for for defrauding? Why is he not being dismissed without any pension. Try that in ANY private sector job & you are fired - maybe even charged if the company wants to make an example of you.
Why are our gubbermint ministers untouchable!!!!
I am furious. Come one bring on any local election and let them come calling to my door for their vote now!
[broken link removed]
"Fianna Fáil has tonight suspended Senator Ivor Callely pending an internal investigation.
The party said it had reviewed “certain matters in the public domain concerning Senator Callely” and “agreed that this information establishes a possible prima facie case of conduct unbecoming a member of the Fianna Fáil organisation”.
Mr Callely, who resigned the Fianna Fáil whip in June, claimed almost €3,000 from the Oireachtas for the purchase of mobile phones and related services from a company which the Companies Registration Office records show had ceased trading.
He was last month deemed to have misrepresented his normal place of residence for the purposes of claiming expenses by the Committee on Members’ Interests of Seanad Éireann."