Councillor With No Car Claims €4000 Mileage

Sponge Bob

CITY COUNCILLOR DEFENDS CONFERENCE MILEAGE EXPENSES

http://www.galwaynews.ie/7695-city-councillor-defends-conference-mileage-expenses

He was not the mayor during the past 2 years . Had he been mayor I would forgive him given the workload and the need to be driven hither and thither .

Tue 2nd June 2009

Galway City Councillor Billy Cameron has defended claiming more then 4000 euro in mileage expenses in the last two years despite not having a car or a driving licence.

The Irish Independent is reporting that Labour Councillor Billy Cameron attended 13 different conferences in the past two years and confirmed that the Hyundai car he cited on his expenses claims forms had been owned by his brother Jerome, who drove him to the conferences.

According to motorcheck.ie, the car did not have an up to date road tax disc and did not have a current NCT disc when it was being used to transport Councillor Cameron to the conferences.

The West Ward Local election candidate has confirmed that his brother subsequently "got rid" of the Hyundai car and was now driving him to conferences in a different car.

GerardKeating

Sponge Bob wrote: »

CITY COUNCILLOR DEFENDS CONFERENCE MILEAGE EXPENSES

http://www.galwaynews.ie/7695-city-councillor-defends-conference-mileage-expenses

He was not the mayor during the past 2 years . Had he been mayor I would forgive him given the workload and the need to be driven hither and thither .

Good story, but the wrong emphasis, there is nothing wrong with claiming milage like this, it would be cheeper than the equilivent Taxi fare, so it would have been a good call (IMHO).

Now allowing himself to be driven in an untaxed/NCT-less car is very bad form. The report mention that the car is now sold, would be nice to know if the back-tax was paid, wonder if the paper can do a FIA requests on this.

cornbb

GerardKeating wrote: »

Good story, but the wrong emphasis, there is nothing wrong with claiming milage like this, it would be cheeper than the equilivent Taxi fare, so it would have been a good call (IMHO).

Now allowing himself to be driven in an untaxed/NCT-less car is very bad form. The report mention that the car is now sold, would be nice to know if the back-tax was paid, wonder if the paper can do a FIA requests on this.

+1, the mileage expenses aren't exactly off the charts in fairness, and it sounds like they were legit. And although untaxed cars aren't cool its not exactly the news of the century.

bigeasyeah

Still though I would very much like to lynch a politician.

snubbleste

bigeasyeah wrote: »

Still though I would very much like to lynch a politician.

yeah but not our dear Billy!
I wish the Indo put as much effort into uncovering murky deals between developers and politicos

Sponge Bob

Here is the fuller Indo version of the same story ..where Galwaynews got it from that is .

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/elections/councillor-with-no-car-or-licence-defends-mileage---expenses-of-over-83644000-1757848.html