John O'Donoghue and his travel spending spree

Biggins

Now that the Lisbon issue is sorted - can we now get back to overthrowing the shower of Dail crooks!

NewDubliner

Biggins wrote: »

Now that the Lisbon issue is sorted - can we now get back to overthrowing the shower of Dail crooks!

First, we need to have a viable alternative. Otherwise we'll just get another coalition.

deadhead13

This information has come to light only because The Sunday Tribune is paying 600 euros each time to get it through FOI. Would the corresponding data for say the Minister for Foreign affairs, or indeed any other Ministry over the same period, show similiar levels of excess? If it did, I think it would be enough to bring the whole thing crashing down.

Biggins

deadhead13 wrote: »

This information has come to light only because The Sunday Tribune is paying 600 euros each time to get it through FOI. Would the corresponding data for say the Minister for Foreign affairs, or indeed any other Ministry over the same period, show similiar levels of excess? If it did, I think it would be enough to bring the whole thing crashing down.

For the last while there has been great argument building up about this 600 charge.
ALL the papers are giving out about it.
They are claiming (and I can understand why) that the charge is deliberately being kept high as to stop and hinder their reporting, not to help enhance it.
With all records now being kept in digital form as well as archived in paper form, the staggering charge being placed on a single document is staggering to say the least.

An ordinary citizen of this country with all the rights in the Irish world couldn't afford to ask to se what is supposed to be participating in the areas covered under the freedom in information.

What price information? Costly search for records

TRYING to determine the real scale of extravagant spending on overseas travel by John O'Donoghue and his wife Kate-Ann has been an expensive, time-consuming and often fruitless exercise.

Records of the massive expenditure, which is already well in excess of €550,000, lie not just with O'Donoghue's former Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism but at least three other agencies under its umbrella: Tourism Ireland, Horse Racing Ireland and the Irish Film Board.

The Sunday Tribune has sought access to the spending record at all four bodies but the only one made available so far has been the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. This resulted from a payment of €523.75 by this newspaper, which was separated into two requests.
The first Freedom of Information (FOI) request spanned the years 2006 and 2007 and yielded hundreds of pages of documents detailing flights, hotels, transport costs, travel itineraries and emails sent within the department.
The second FOI request which was written in exactly the same terms, yielded only FOUR pages of information, which came in the form of a tabulated, heavily-redacted response detailing more than €174,447 in spending, which excludes the cost of the government jet.

In this second FOI, the names of hotels have now been omitted; details of what class the O'Donoghues flew in are not available; the name of the car hire company that was used is not included; and the O'Donoghues' day-to-day itineraries are missing.
Also conspicuous by their absence are dozens of individual bills for flights, hotels and other expenditure paid for – on behalf of the taxpayer – by Tourism Ireland, the Irish Film Board and Horse Racing Ireland.

An attempt to get access to ministerial travel expenditure at Tourism Ireland during the period 2002 to 2005 would have cost more than €1,600.
Similarly, there is a huge premium on records at the Irish Film Board: for an examination of spending in that body filed last year, the quoted price was also a four-figure sum.

At Horse Racing Ireland, the Sunday Tribune has not even been offered an estimate of how much it will cost to provide details of expenditure on O'Donoghue and his wife.

"There may be relevant records across a range of categories and locations but this would require a review of a significant volume of records covering the five years involved and significant time required to identify, locate, collate and copy such documentation," said a letter from the agency. "You may wish to vary your application and please feel free to revert to... [us] in this regard."

Source: http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2009/sep/13/what-price-information-costly-search-for-records/

UPDATE: Here is a further location where you will find relevant info: http://thestory.ie/

Liam Byrne

€600 for "Freedom of Information" stuff ??? :eek:

Can we charge these scum €600 the next time they send us a census form ?

And - back on topic to this (money)waster O'Donoghue - €293 for lunch with Brendan Howlin ???? What the **** were they eating ? A 6" Subway is 1% of that price, and people who actually work make do with that!

Seth Brundle

Liam Byrne wrote: »

And - back on topic to this (money)waster O'Donoghue - €293 for lunch with Brendan Howlin ???? What the **** were they eating ? A 6" Subway is 1% of that price, and people who actually work make do with that!

How dare you suggest that our political elite eat from a fast food premises. My God, the thought of him being near riff raff like us with our germs and our lice.
What people in this thread are failing to remember is that we are lucky to have someone as talented, someone as great, someone as noble as Sir John.

mike65

deadhead13 wrote: »

This information has come to light only because The Sunday Tribune is paying 600 euros each time to get it through FOI. Would the corresponding data for say the Minister for Foreign affairs, or indeed any other Ministry over the same period, show similiar levels of excess? If it did, I think it would be enough to bring the whole thing crashing down.

We need a FOI fund of some sort.

Seth Brundle

It would need to be a very big fund!

mike65

Well Tony O'Reilly has a few bob still I think!

thebman

The ridiculous charge just shows the don't want people snooping too much.

An argument that this stops nonsense requests is nonsense IMO as a charge of 1/4 of that price would yield the same result.

Biggins

thebman wrote: »

The ridiculous charge just shows the don't want people snooping too much.

An argument that this stops nonsense requests is nonsense IMO as a charge of 1/4 of that price would yield the same result.

...add to that - the fact they they are deliberately cutting down on the information they are making available as can be see by the second request by the Sunday Tribune (above) and it's gotten 4 pages, is a CLEAR attempt to hide the FULL truths.


FF and co at their best skills - or worst antics!

mike65

Banter Joe wrote: »

Hopefully the fact the Lisbon result was such an anticlimax and decided so quickly will mean that the Sunday papers will have some more room for JOD. The release of the expenses on the day of the referendum is such an underhand tactic.

I still feel that this is going to blow over again in a week or two however, and he'll be safe and happy in his ivory tower looking down on all of us common people for the next seven or eight years.

The good news is that the Lisbon result has hardly been talked of on RTEs chatathon this morning, it all O'Donoghue.

DublinWriter

mike65 wrote: »

The good news is that the Lisbon result has hardly been talked of on RTEs chatathon this morning, it all O'Donoghue.

Unbelievable that JOD is the current chair of the Dail committee on TDs' salary and expenses...only in Ireland.

mike65

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Amazing isn't it? The first thing that should have happened when this came to light is that he should have been removed from said com-mi-tteeeeeeeeee but that would have required Cowen to fully recognise John Bulls excesses.

bonzos

In the mail on sunday today we get more details of this clown and hie wife flying to paris for 2 days racing and claiming for it as a business trip,he gave no detailed reciepts only credit card reciepts from the races.This focker is out of control and has no respect for the irish people,it seem to have gotten to the stage where FF cant even manage him and his entitlement to the high life is bring an unwanted spot light on all the boys(sorry ,and girls..lets not forget about harney).It also does not say much for the legal profession in this country when people with this attitude are seen to be the back bone of it.

Biggins

bonzos wrote: »

In the mail on sunday today we get more details of this clown and hie wife flying to paris for 2 days racing and claiming for it as a business trip,he gave no detailed reciepts only credit card reciepts from the races.This focker is out of control and has no respect for the irish people,it seem to have gotten to the stage where FF cant even manage him and his entitlement to the high life is bring an unwanted spot light on all the boys(sorry ,and girls..lets not forget about harney).It also does not say much for the legal profession in this country when people with this attitude are seen to be the back bone of it.

Info: http://thestory.ie/2009/10/02/jod-expenses-and-allowances-documents/

Also now the government is clearly trying to hide the truth!

...The first Freedom of Information (FOI) request spanned the years 2006 and 2007 and yielded hundreds of pages of documents detailing flights, hotels, transport costs, travel itineraries and emails sent within the department.

The second FOI request which was written in exactly the same terms, yielded only FOUR pages of information, which came in the form of a tabulated, heavily-redacted response detailing more than €174,447 in spending, which excludes the cost of the government jet.

In this second FOI, the names of hotels have now been omitted; details of what class the O'Donoghues flew in are not available; the name of the car hire company that was used is not included; and the O'Donoghues' day-to-day itineraries are missing.

Source: http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2009/sep/13/what-price-information-costly-search-for-records/

By not providing further details such as above, they (the government) know the trail of used cash is harder to follow.

bonzos

Fair play to the mail ,tribune ,newstalk and today fm for keeping the pressure on him despite any party willing lay a finger on him.He said "sorry" to the lads in the dail (not the irish people who paid for the trips for himself & kate ann)and that was ok of enda ,eamon and co..RTE are doing a great job in keeping the story low key,Pity sky news didnt ask biffo about it when he was on yesterday making a show out of himself and compare it to what happened in the UK....at least the crooks in the UK put up their hands and admitted they where taking the p1ss and resigned!

Hootanany

I just sent that template letter to them all anyone else do it

bonzos

+1

Biggins

The Fianna Fail Way!

ismynametoolong

Is Ruari Quinn the only TD to ask for him to resign

Liam Byrne

Biggins wrote: »

By not providing further details such as above, they (the government) know the trail of abused cash is harder to follow.

Fixed that for you.

Biggins

Sorry its so large but I think ye all might want to see the full article!




The larger page can be downloaded in better resolution from this link: http://rapidshare.com/files/288583324/joined2.jpg

bonzos

White collar criminals the two of them..if this went on at a private company without the boss knowing (which it wouldnt) they would followed until every penny was repaid!whats his focking doing traveling around the world at our expense? did anyone vote for her ???these pair are giving every single taxpayer in this country the two fingers

Hootanany

bonzos wrote: »

White collar criminals the two of them..if this went on at a private company without the boss knowing (which it wouldnt) they would followed until every penny was repaid!whats his focking doing traveling around the world at our expense? did anyone vote for her ???these pair are giving every single taxpayer in this country the two fingers

Send the template letter to all td's for a start

dodgyme

rte


Labour leader Eamon Gilmore has said he will seek a meeting of all the party leaders to address the controversy over expenses incurred by the Ceann Comhairle, John O'Donoghue, during his time both as a minister and in his present office.

In a statement, Mr Gilmore said he was concerned at the damage that the controversy was doing to the office of Ceann Comhairle

dRNk SAnTA

Why the hell is the Ceann Comhairle's wife travelling first class and the tax payers expense?

There is an important side issue here - the Fianna Fáil butchering of the Freedom of Information act needs to be reversed. It should never take this long to find out about a minister's expenses, and in the case of the article above - FOI responses lacking details of hotels and companies used is not good enough.

I really think it would help with an awful lot of problems in our political system.

Biggins

dodgyme wrote: »

rte


Labour leader Eamon Gilmore has said he will seek a meeting of all the party leaders to address the controversy over expenses incurred by the Ceann Comhairle, John O'Donoghue, during his time both as a minister and in his present office.

In a statement, Mr Gilmore said he was concerned at the damage that the controversy was doing to the office of Ceann Comhairle

So in other words, they are crapping themselves that things might turn like things have recently done in England and their expenses fiasco.

"...so quick, lets be seen to be doing some sort of damage limitation before the crap REALLY hits the fan!" :rolleyes:

Sorry TDs - some of us unhappy sheep is not falling for it!

thebman

dRNk SAnTA wrote: »

Why the hell is the Ceann Comhairle's wife travelling first class and the tax payers expense?

There is an important side issue here - the Fianna Fáil butchering of the Freedom of Information act needs to be reversed. It should never take this long to find out about a minister's expenses, and in the case of the article above - FOI responses lacking details of hotels and companies used is not good enough.

I really think it would help with an awful lot of problems in our political system.

FF party whip on week in politics tonight saying they are pushing for transparency :rolleyes:

Biggins

thebman wrote: »

FF party whip on week in politics tonight saying they are pushing for transparency :rolleyes:

Complete Bollox!
For aforementioned reasons and the fact that the WHOLE friggin' bunch won't even agree to a new proposed clock-in system at the Dail!
Why?
Because they are afraid that under the FOI act, the public will FINALLY be able to see down to the minute, just how much EXACTLY each TD spends in the Dail when he/she is supposed to be there.

...and thats just yet another example amid many! :mad: