First they spend 40k on a wordpress website, now this, what planet are these on

tommytee

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/6500--spent-to-fly-minister-noel-dempsey-from--derry-to-dublin-14899676.html

sickens me to the core, would have expected this a year or two ago but this is recent, Dempsey "cut you cloth u arrogant #%*t"

jmayo

o'donoghue, o'dea, callely, ahern, cullen, dempsey all lashing out on expenses paid for by us the taxpayers.
Their arrogance knows no bounds. :rolleyes:

Laminations

tommytee wrote: »

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/6500--spent-to-fly-minister-noel-dempsey-from--derry-to-dublin-14899676.html

sickens me to the core, would have expected this a year or two ago but this is recent, Dempsey "cut you cloth u arrogant #%*t"

That article reports the £6,500 expense of the Derry to London flight - it lets the man off lightly

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/dempsey-under-pressure-to-explain-100k-trip-468271.html

Laminations

His explanation so far?

Urgent government business.

Does anyone know what the meeting in London was about?

He said he could not give details of the meeting because it was sensitive government business, relating to aviation.

How can one use the word urgent after taking an overnight in Donegal? How would taking the state car up to Derry with the driver and flying Ryanair to London the following day have made the meetings less urgent??

Rubik.

By far the biggest user, or abuser (whichever you prefer), of the Government jet has been Mary Harney. 15 journeys between 2006 and 2008, cost to the taxpayer 735,000 euros.

http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2009/oct/11/hail-mary-full-of-disgrace/

Head The Wall

Rubik. wrote: »

By far the biggest user, or abuser (whichever you prefer), of the Government jet has been Mary Harney. 15 journeys between 2006 and 2008, cost to the taxpayer 735,000 euros.

http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2009/oct/11/hail-mary-full-of-disgrace/

Probably cheaper than having to pay for two first class seats on a commercial flight whereever she goes

aidanodr

Hi Guys,

Just so you understand the "First they spend 40k on a wordpress website" part of this threads subject!

I am a small web design / internet company. I saw this about the €40k for this new gov website based on OPEN SOURCE ( FREE ) software. They used wordpress which is FREE to all and it seems alot of the FREE plugins to extend the sites functionality also.

**** And the Gov paid €40k for THIS. ****

Out in the real world you would be lucky to get €1200 - €2000 for this. Some companies start at €399 for a Wordpress / CMS based site built with a pre set template slapped on top, you can get templates ( the site look ) for as little as FREE and up to near €200 depending on exclusivity.

I mean €40k ... wow. Two of them a year is all you would need - but then it seems you and I paid for this!


THE SITE:

http://www.merrionstreet.ie/


SOME ARTICLES:

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/taoiseach-set-to-tweet-as-govt-unveils-new-social-media-strategy-2259599.html
http://www.irishcentral.com/story/news/irish-media-nation/taoiseach-on-twitter--irish-government-now-a-social-media-adopter-98286689.html

And here is WORDPRESS:

http://wordpress.org/ - FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

And the zillions of plugins: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ - these are also all FREEEEEE. All can be used to extend the basic Wordpress and adapted to anyones needs.

The work is in Custom Templating and tweaking some of the code to fit a clients needs. After that the site content areas are editable by the client themselves via a backend login ( all part of and already coded into the base Wordpress Download ).

Cheers - AIDAN

mikemac

Donegal airport is about 40km or so from Glenties and well capable of handing such a jet.
Why go to Derry airport which is 94km away?

Maybe weather conditions or flight restrictions, I don't realy know.
We can trust the pilots to follow procedures, I'm just surprised they chose Derry

kuntboy

They really are stuffed full of their own self-importance yet every one of them is expendable. They're like the pigs in Animal Farm.

The_Thing

THE Irish Government’s Information Service has built a new social networking-led internet platform based on WordPress, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter called MerrionStreet.ie.

The site was developed by http://www.arekibo.com/
A list of both public-sector and private-sector clients of arekibo can be found here - http://www.arekibo.com/info/overview-ourclients.aspx

Considering the fact that there is more to the site than just farting around with some stand-alone Wordpress template I wonder is €40,000 really too much too pay for something that took 5 months to complete and will last long after B. Clown and Co will be gone from government?

Were tenders sought for development of the site? How many developers were employed during the 5 months? In what way did the €40,000 break down into individual costs?

Out in the real world you would be lucky to get €1200 - €2000 for this

Are Arekibo not a real-world company? Perhaps this then is another example of the greed of the private-sector?

maninasia

10,000 euro with a yearly service contract...not 40,000, so by my reckoning 300% overpaid!

Head The Wall

The_Thing wrote: »

The site was developed by http://www.arekibo.com/
A list of both public-sector and private-sector clients of arekibo can be found here - http://www.arekibo.com/info/overview-ourclients.aspx

Considering the fact that there is more to the site than just farting around with some stand-alone Wordpress template I wonder is €40,000 really too much too pay for something that took 5 months to complete and will last long after B. Clown and Co will be gone from government?

Were tenders sought for development of the site? How many developers were employed during the 5 months? In what way did the €40,000 break down into individual costs?



Are Arekibo not a real-world company? Perhaps this then is another example of the greed of the private-sector?

It shows the carelessness of the people buying this stuff that they don't know the market value of what they are purchasing. Have they never heard of bargaining, I know there is a tender process but surely they can set a realistic limit and not pay above that.

It appears that they don't care as it's not their money they are spending. That's it in a nut shell

thebman

The_Thing wrote: »

Are Arekibo not a real-world company? Perhaps this then is another example of the greed of the private-sector?

Its not greed to charge the maximum you can for something, its business.

Its the governments fault for agreeing to pay over the odds for something.

How you can blame the company for the governments poor tendering process, I'll never know.

Liam Byrne

thebman wrote: »

Its not greed to charge the maximum you can for something, its business.

Obviously that's where I went wrong during the Celtic Tiger years; I've always believed in charging a fair price, not the absolute max I though someone would pay.

Sigh!

Sponge Bob

You will note that arekibo have a lot of gigs in the electricity energy sector from where the government press secretary himself came 4 years ago and to where he may return in future.

No suggestion of any favouritism naturally

GSF

thebman wrote: »

Its not greed to charge the maximum you can for something, its business.

Its short termist. Any normal procurement team will look elsewhere for an alternative service at a more reasonable cost in future.

Jenroche

With regards to the government jet, it should be sold off and all the ministers made to travel Ryanair/Aer Lingus. It costs money to even have the thing standing on the tarmac. Get rid of it, I say.

Jen ;->

The_Thing

You will note that Arekibo have a lot of gigs in the private sector - IBEC and the Small Firms Association have had sites developed by the company as did the Irish Software Association.

Are we to believe that the above got the job done for a pittance while the government paid over the odds?

How do we know that €40,000 wasn't the lowest tender submitted?

I personally know of someone in London who is currently having a site developed with all the social-networking trappings as part of a new business venture - so far the site has cost around 20,000 Sterling to develop and was still unfinished when I was shown it a few months ago.

simplistic2

tommytee wrote: »

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/6500--spent-to-fly-minister-noel-dempsey-from--derry-to-dublin-14899676.html

sickens me to the core, would have expected this a year or two ago but this is recent, Dempsey "cut you cloth u arrogant #%*t"

He deserves it these people are our betters you all support this when you vote. The system is set up for him to abuse it. So to all you voters out there , If you vote you support what this man is doing and you support his right to do it, sure its only fair its democracy!

Head The Wall

The_Thing wrote: »

Are we to believe that the above got the job done for a pittance while the government paid over the odds?

How do we know that €40,000 wasn't the lowest tender submitted?

Yes there is a belief in the business world that you can charge more for Govt jobs because it seems as if no one gets a real market value while tendering.

This could have been the lowest tender, but if everyone knows they can charge more the tenders will reflect that.

ART6

Laminations wrote: »

His explanation so far?

Urgent government business.

According to my newspaper it was to be on time for dinner with friends in Knighsbridge, and a meeting at the Irish embassy at 07.30 the next morning. Urgent business indeed.

The_Thing

Head The Wall wrote: »

Yes there is a belief in the business world that you can charge more for Govt jobs...

A belief?

Or perhaps there is\was a price-fixing agreement among those private sector firms that tendered for the job - how then can the government get value for money if none of the quotations submitted are an honest costing for the job?

Welease

Is there a breakdown of what the 40K was spent on?

Without this, then people are just shooting in the dark, and most seem to be assuming the worse..

For a simple site it's excessive..
For a site, with training/documentation included, so the staff who will be responsible for maintaining and uploading information into the site going forward it's not too bad..
For a site, with the above, and consultancy into what type of site was needed before development, where the information should be gathered from, design including photographs. etc etc etc that is a decent price...

The site itself might be the end result of 6 months of work, in which case it's damn cheap..

It's alright, sure the tax payer will pick this one up and the rest in the coming budget :rolleyes:

This current government are taking the piss :mad:

The_Thing

The site itself might be the end result of 6 months of work, in which case it's damn cheap..

The site took 5 months to complete.

Welease

The_Thing wrote: »

The site took 5 months to complete.

That's all the detail that I have seen posted, but that in itself is not enough to understand the cost. 5 months is just an indication of how long it took, not how many resources were used, or what was delivered for the 40K.

Head The Wall

The_Thing wrote: »

A belief?

Or perhaps there is\was a price-fixing agreement among those private sector firms that tendered for the job - how then can the government get value for money if none of the quotations submitted are an honest costing for the job?

No, people procuring these products/services should know what is a realistic price for what they're ordering and if the tender doesn't meet that they shouldn't buy it. Would you buy a house without knowing what it's really worth?

They should then tender again and again until some thing comes within their price range. These people buy like there's no upper limit on their budget.

Say I get quotes to get a kitchen fitted and my budget is 5,000. The lowest quote is 7,500, do I go for that quote or do I wait keep looking until I get one that fits my budget.

Simple budgeting, it's not rocket science

ninty9er

Dempsey is not an extravagant person, HE did not make the travel arrangements. They were the ONLY travel arrangements that worked out.

Ryanair's claim that he could have gotten to Belfast is incorrect as he would have had to break probably 50% if not more of the road safety principles he preaches to get to Belfast City Airport from Gelnties.

Ryanair's last flight on a Monday is at 20:15. Check-in closes 40 minutes prior to departure, that's 19:35, getting to the airport from Gelnties takes 2 hours 45 according to Google, we'll accept that taking traffic etc into consideration considering he would be required as a minister of a foreign state to be transported by PSNI outrider, that gets us back to 16:50. Now considering he was due to speak at 4, we can safely assume that by that time of the day the sessions had run late and that it would have been closer to 16:30 when he started. If you take a speech time of 20 minutes and press time then he's already missed Ryanair's last flight.

Ryanair's first flight on a Tuesday morning from Belfast gets to Stansted at 7:45, 15 minutes after the meeting over an hours drive away was to begin.

Same issue with Aer Lingus and BA don't do a non-connecting Belfast Heathrow flight.

Now can we get over the fact that approx €10k was spent, when the fact of the matter is that there is a possible economic benefit from this trip in the thousands of multiples of that.

Can we also stop believing Ryanair in this instance, because under any other circumstance we all know that Ryanair could tell the truth even if its share price depended on it.

If anyone wants to brand me an apologist don't bother, he could have cancelled on the Magill committment, but the papers would have had a field day on that too.

Ten grand is significant, but it's not going to save us, and can we get this straight too. Ministers travel on commercial flights WHERE they are AVAILABLE.

Scuba Ste

ninty9er wrote: »

Dempsey is not an extravagant person, HE did not make the travel arrangements. They were the ONLY travel arrangements that worked out.

I don't buy that. I understand the difficulties in getting from Dublin to Glenties and then to London. But, if I need to be at a meeting in London tomorrow morning I simply cancel any speeches I want to give in Glenties tonight, especially when it costs me 10k to do both.

If it was coming out of his own pocket he'd find a cheaper solution, our politicians are not of that mindset when it's our money they're spending.

Sponge Bob

ninty9er wrote: »

Dempsey is not an extravagant person, HE did not make the travel arrangements.

:eek:

Todays Trib

http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2010/aug/08/dempsey-given-5000-cash-advances-for-overseas-trip/

The St Patrick's Day trip in 2007 had already proved expensive for the taxpayer with more than €70,000 spent on the travel arrangements.


Two days of that trip marked "private" were spent at the Apple Farm Inn, a four-hour drive from San Francisco, where the minister stayed. Limousine costs to bring Dempsey to the Apple Farm Inn cost $3,000 and were charged to the taxpayer despite the time being considered "private".


Dempsey travelled to the US with his wife Bernadette and three members of staff, details released by the Department of Communications show. Flights for the Minister and his wife cost €8,139 each while three other flights for advisers and civil servants came to €6,711 each.

The hotel is indeed 4 hours from San Francisco , Dempseys limo cost $750 an hour and we don't know ( or care) how he got back from there. Pity the yanks didn't keep him

Liam Byrne

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Well, ninty9er ? Any comment to make on that ?

Sounds like a SERIOUSLY extravagant spend to me on personal time (which therefore shouldn't have been booked by a public servant).

Not to mention the fact that it's defrauding the taxpayer by getting us to pay for it.

By all means, take a day or two off when abroad for work in order to see the local sights (I did a few years back when work sent me to Toronto) but I paid for the trip to Niagara Falls on the bus myself, and rightly so.