Tales from Talbot Towers

Six Sundays have now passed and the Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue is still holding his silence, refusing to comment on a controversy that shows no signs of disappearing.

When the Sunday Tribune first published details of his overseas travel expenditure back on July 26, I remember thinking at the time that perhaps it was wise that he stayed silent on what was being reported.

He would have clearly recalled the controversy over junketeering at FAS and remembered vividly how it was not the expenditure itself that ended Rody Molloy’s career, rather the interview on RTE Radio in which he vainly attempted to justify it.

Any attempt by John O’Donoghue to explain away the amounts of money being spent, E7,000 for a chauffeur for Cheltenham, E180 for hat hire, E900 a night on hotels in Cannes and Paris would only have ended in embarrassment.

Six weeks later and my position – unlike O’Donoghue’s – has changed.

The controversy over expenditure has not disappeared and it is clear from the Sunday Tribune’s latest story that Mr O’Donoghue’s travel itinerary was unusually extensive, even when compared to his Cabinet colleagues.

http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2009/aug/30/odonoghue-flew-to-kerry-or-back-73-times-in-a-year/

It is an open secret that many more stories remain to be told about O’Donoghue’s travels, not least because the original FOI only covered a two-year period between 2006 and 2007.

Plenty of travel took place in those other years he served at the Department, going right back to 2002, and it is quite literally only a matter of weeks before those too become public.

The time has probably come now where John O’Donoghue will have to address the issue, be it in a statement or a media interview. Whether he takes that opportunity is anybody’s guess.

Simply put, the explanations being put forward by Cabinet colleagues, both present and former, are only serving to further anger people.

For John O’Donoghue’s successor in the “Ministry of Fun”, Martin Cullen, there has also been ample opportunity for overseas travel.

In this week’s Sunday Tribune, we disclosed details of his trips abroad during his first year and a bit in office.

http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2009/aug/30/the-rising-cost-of-cullen/

Although the costs involved in some of these trips have been pretty significant, it is quite clear that the price being paid for hotels and flights is starting to fall.

The era of E900 a night hotels, having a driver on call at Cheltenham for eighteen hours a day, and having a limousine collect a Minister at one Heathrow terminal only to drop him off at another appears at last to be over.

And these are the details of John O’Donoghue’s trip to New York, organised through Tourism Ireland.

http://www.scribd.com/share/upload/15119224/w69ykeketpsteox34gr

As explained earlier, one of the difficulties in getting an idea of the full extent of Ministerial spending is the possibility that it may have been paid for by another government body.

Just on a point of interest, I see plenty of discussion on the boards about the type of costs involved in non-focused FOI requests, that is ones where you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for.

To give just a few recent examples, Tourism Ireland quoted the Sunday Tribune E3,068.75 for access to records relating to Ministerial travel from 2002 to 2006. This is not particularly unusual.

P.S. If there are any millionaires out there who think that would be money well-spent, feel free to get in touch.

So I’ve finally got around to posting the expenses from Martin Cullen’s trip to the Ryder Cup last September. If you want to access it, just search through the document for “Minister”.

http://www.scribd.com/share/upload/15118777/247gdyxiq8xxe9znxugc

It formed part of a much larger FOI request relating to travel at Tourism Ireland. It shows large amounts of spending at the agency. Somewhat ironically, Paul O’Toole – who was in charge there – has since been put in charge at FAS.

In today’s Tribune, we are carrying a story about how an airport transit to transport John O’Donoghue from one terminal of Heathrow Airport to another ended up costing E472.
Even though it was just a two-hour layover as Minister O’Donoghue landed in London en route from India back to Dublin, an official from the Embassy came to meet him in a car, collected him and dropped him off at Terminal 1.
Also, there’s an interview with Terry Gallagher, the owner of the Cartel car hire company, which provides transport on behalf of the Irish Embassy in London.
Plenty of Internet boards have suggested Fianna Fail cronyism at work here because Mr Gallagher’s father is a former government Minister.
It is distracting from the real issue. Mr Gallagher has been doing business with the Irish government for twenty years or so and conducted VIP transport on behalf of the previous Fine Gael/Labour administration.
The issue is – and always has been – whether the Irish taxpayer feels it is justifiable to spend close to E500 on an airport transfer or E7,000 to provide car transport for a Minister during the Cheltenham racing festival.
You can read the story here:
http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2009/aug/23/odonoghue-skipped-airport-shuttle-to-take-472-car-/

These are the two Ministerial expenses stories that largely slipped under the radar in recent times.

The first involves John O’Donoghue’s trip to New York where €28,000 was spent in four days between himself, his wife, his private secretary and another senior civil servant.

This does not feature in the larger O’Donoghue FOI because this trip was paid for by Tourism Ireland.

One of the difficulties in divining the exact nature of Ministerial travel expenditure is the fact that it could be paid for by the Department itself, the Department of Foreign Affairs and most pertinently, any of the State or semi-State bodies under the general control of that government Department.

http://www.tribune.ie/article/2009/jul/26/odonoghue-spends-28000-four-night-junket-us/?q=o%27donoghue

Another story that slipped by largely under the radar is the 20-odd grand spent by Minister Martin Cullen and a number of officials on a trip to the Ryder Cup last year.

Mr Cullen stayed in an $800 a night hotel and flights alone for himself and two civil servants came to more than €14,000.

One spurious defence offered by supporters of John O’Donoghue is that the country could at least afford it when he was on his travels. No such excuse can be made for the Ryder Cup trip, which took place just last September as the economy went into freefall.

http://www.tribune.ie/article/2009/may/24/so-how-did-you-swing-this-one-minister/

This story started more than a year ago as I began to look into allegations of excessive spending by the Ceann Comhairle’s office.
First up was a story about the refurbishment of John O’Donoghue’s office in Leinster House at a cost to the taxpayer of more than €100,000, which included €29,000 for carpets, a €1,000 chair and €11,000 carpets.
http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2008/aug/10/a-cosy-office-for-the-ceann-comhairle-at-only-1000/
Next up came the story, which might have began the furore about his expenses but didn’t. In this, the Sunday Tribune disclosed how on a trip to New York, he stayed at a $1,200 a night hotel and spent another $1,200 on tickets for Broadway shows. I’m going to upload the FOI documents released by Tourism Ireland regarding this trip when I get a chance. They have not been made available to the public at large yet and are interesting.
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2009/jul/05/1200-a-night-junket-for-odonoghue-in-new-york/
Following that, there was the by now notorious story of John O’Donoghue’s €900 a night hotels, the €250 on water taxis, the €120 for hat hire and the €80 for the “Indians” who carried in the luggage.
http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2009/jul/26/the-minister-his-wife-and-126k-expenses/
The following week, we carried a story about how John O’Donoghue had used the government jet to fly from Cannes to Kerry and then on to the Heineken Cup Final in Cardiff.
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2009/aug/02/revealed-john-odonoghues-six-day-odyssey-on-state-/
Then came the story, which seems to have caused the greatest consternation, how Mr O’Donoghue had a private driver for the duration of the Cheltenham racing festival, who cost €1,400 a day.
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2009/aug/09/odonoghues-cheltenham-chauffeur-cost-1400-a-day/
Lastly, we carried a story about the VIP services rented on behalf of the Minister at a Paris airport.
http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2009/aug/16/odonoghue-spent-767-in-paris-airport/

I’m delighted to see Gavin’s Blog (http://www.gavinsblog.com/) posting up details of the full John O’Donoghue request, a big undertaking, which I simply wouldn’t have had time to do these past few weeks. So if people want to find out more of the actual nitty-gritty details, they’ll get it there. In our series of stories, I’ve tried my level best to give the complete picture of the spending that was involved but there is a lot of detail there and they are worth reading.

If there are any more stories to come, I will – in future – upload the relevant documents on this blog, time permitting.
In saying that, if my newspaper pays a significant sum of money for an FOI request, I think we are perfectly entitled to get first value-for-money out of it, despite the criticism we have received from some quarters.

I have said all along that documents regarding Ministerial expenses should not just be available under FOI, but that they should be published either online or, even better, made accessible for inspection by the general public.

There is also a strong misconception out there that the Department of Arts, Sport & Tourism are withholding information about this. They are not, and when our stories refer to incomplete information, it is simply that there are some missing documents. The Department has been quite open about this and I don’t believe there is any question of withholding data. Where information is blacked out, there is no conspiracy, it simply means that those costs do not relate to John O’Donoghue’s travels and are thus not being made available under the scope of the original FOI request.

If anybody has any questions or comments, feel free to make them.

Revenge is a dish that is best served cold...

Adrian Bestea was beaten to death, then stuffed in a suitcase, because his girlfriend claimed he was violent towards her. Michael Brady signed his own death warrant when he strangled his wife Julie to death. Denis Donaldson was shot dead in a remote Donegal cottage – because he had admitted to being a British “mole” within Sinn Fein. Charlotte and Linda Mulhall (the so-called “Scissors Sisters”) murdered and dismembered Farah Swaleh Noor – because he was a violent man who constantly abused their mother.

Ken Foxe looks at these and many other recent killings in Ireland, and concludes that the motives in all of these cases can be summed up in one word: REVENGE.  Ireland is often called a nation of begrudgers – but what happens when a grudge is held by a violent or unstable character?  What happens when it is left to fester in the mind of a psychopath?  Or even when an otherwise ordinary person is pushed to the edge of sanity by abuse and violence?  The results can often be bloody.

REVENGE pulls no punches in describing how this most ancient of motives has led to so many murders.