Eleven weeks after the first John O’Donoghue stories in the Sunday Tribune, the Ceann Comhairle announced that he would be resigning his position.
This is the text of an article we carried in the paper, which sums up my thoughts on what has happened.
IN THE end, it was John O’Donoghue’s passion for betting that proved his [...]
Back at the end of July around the time that the Sunday Tribune first published details of John O’Donoghue’s penchant for overseas travel, I decided it would be worth having a look at his travel records whilst Ceann Comhairle.
I submitted a standard FOI request looking for:
- details of all expense claims submitted by John O’Donoghue [...]
Between 2002 and 2005, the Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue and his wife Kate-Ann ran up an overseas travel bill of nearly E175,000.
Travel on board the government jet cost a similar amount and added to their travel in 2006 and 2007 the total bill for those five years came to more than E550,000.
As promised, these are [...]
So John O’Donoghue has finally spoken [well put pen to paper] and admitted that travel expenses run up by himself and his wife Kate-Ann “appeared” to be high.
In reality, they “appeared” high because they were high … incredibly high.
During the course of his five years in office at the Department of Arts, Sport & Tourism, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]