Paschal Donohoe expenses controversy

Why is it small beer? Because we've been told it's only a grand?

It's only money, no one has died.

If the govt don't get their act together with housing and health people WILL die.

People have died. According to the Irish Times homeless services have said 357 people died over a 5 year period to 2021 and 70 died in 2022 and that is just Homeless people, god knows what the numbers are with people dying waiting on procedures or waiting in A&E. All this government have done is make SF look like a viable alternative.

So where does the line get drawn? Considering we have a Varadkar leaking a confidential document to his mates, Coveney setting up Zappone with a cushy number, Covid restrictions been re-written to save Varadkar after attending the Zappone party at the Merrion, Woulfe appointment to the supreme court, Murphy making off with the expenses, Troy and his 11 forgotten houses, English lying on a planning application and now Donohue and the donations and awarding of seats on state boards to his mate who made the donations. So again I will ask where does the line get drawn? What's the point in having Standards in Public Office if they can be waved off because its small fry? Usually what happens is that they get away with the small fry and then move onto to bigger and if you for 1 minute believe that this is all there is then you are very naïve, this I'd say hasn't even scratched the surface of what these politicians are getting up to.

Great post. There's a few missing off that list too.

I certainly never said criminal (that we know of yet) but still a resigning matter.

If you take undeclared payments, from somebody who's benefited from the decisions of your party, and can't credibly account for them, you should resign.

It's simply not good enough.

And human error does not hold up either. Are you telling me Stone can run this massive business, managing multi-million private and public contracts but can't follow this political donations procedure? Conveniently at the same time PDs election agent had these human errors too? Come off it.

I don't need to justify anything. A resigning issue is not always black and white. In this case, I think a resigning would be OTT. I do not feel what has happened (to date, maybe more will emerge) is calls for him to resign.

Paschal is struggling with the numbers.

He is trying his best to attribute some of Stone's donations to FG in order to evade limits.

The limit on donations to parties is €2,500, whereas it is €1,000 to individuals.

But again this is all just coming from their own figure of 1000e.

Looking at the number of people employed and what other candidates declared on poster spend, I think it's likely to be over 2.5k anyway.

Minister Neal Richmond (FG) was a disaster on Radio 1. Usual BS lines and attacking SF before deflecting to SIPO. The same toothless SIPO that cannot investigate anything unless there is a complaint made.

Red rotten.

I would not be looking at sf to make things better.

In NI and in sf controlled councils, the homeless issue is far worse than the south and the health system up North is on its knees like the rest of the nhs

The Minister for 'Standards' in Public Office clearly fooled some of ye! 🤣

I didn't say anywhere that SF would make things better, what I said was that this government have made SF a viable alternative. SF are on 30 odd percent in the polls and it is not because they are any great shakes but because this government is rotten to the core. This PD thing may seen small but when added in with everything else it gives the impression that they are corrupt and looking after cronys. I listed a whole slew to strokes this government have pulled and your response was to say look at SF in NI. If that is all FFG supporters have in response then they are in a bad place.

That’s not true. Not every politician is in it for themselves.

Plenty are really good hard working people trying their very best (in a real thankless job to many) trying to better the lives of people.

Tell ya one thing, if all these politicians heard you and said, shag it, we’ll leave it alone… wouldn’t be to long before people would realise the efforts they make and their essential role in a civilised and progressive society.

they’re not perfect. They’re people, like us all. And at times they will make poor choices and decisions, and it’s sad that it’s always these errors that people zone in on, and can’t ever see all the positives they bring.