An open letter to all party leaders about unwarranted "expenses"

Liam Byrne

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

I can't understand them being paid their wages in their absence. None were on official business. Most if not all "ordinary" people caught up in the debacle were forced to either take it as holidays or were docked their wages.

Personally speaking, I would tend to agree, however since this would be open to debate due to some companies paying out of goodwill and the whole "the delays weren't their fault" angle, I wanted to focus the letter on the FACT that they were paid "attendance expenses" while NOT ATTENDING and NOT INCURRING SAID EXPENSES.

This is 100% defrauding of OUR money :mad:.

Big Mouth

Too many little angry man "protest" threads here, although this isn't as embarrassing as the Armed Revolt thread, (Armed with what? A butter knife. Don't make me laugh)

They way things are now I doubt any Politician would file dodgy expenses and I do hope the ones who did / or do are punished but for gods sake we should be more worried about getting the country back on track ASAP.

Get over that hurdle then worry about the smaller things.....

Liam Byrne

Big Mouth wrote: »

They way things are now I doubt any Politician would file dodgy expenses and I do hope the ones who did / or do are punished

They have, which is the whole point of the thread.

Big Mouth wrote: »

but for gods sake we should be more worried about getting the country back on track ASAP.

Getting the country back on track means accepting the cuts that the TDs propose; those cuts will not be accepted if TDs continue to milk us.

Big Mouth wrote: »

Get over that hurdle then worry about the smaller things.....

My granny used to say that looking after the pennies was the starting point, not the other way around.

Maybe every person filing their tax returns for next week should file "expenses" that they didn't incur too ? Do you think they'd get the OK and nod-wink if they did ?

bamboozle

from dictionary.com
expenses,
a. charges incurred during a business assignment or trip.

b. money paid as reimbursement for such charges: to receive a salary and expenses.

if these TD's were not on dail business how can they claim expenses?
the lack of leadership from FF Govt on such simple issues as this just clarifies for me how they'll never get us out of this mess cause their greed is getting in the way of leading by example and making simple changes to get their own dirty snouts out of the trough.

Shea O'Meara

Nijmegen wrote: »

Labour is financially tied to the unions,

*yawn*

FFail being tied to every private interest with enough money to spread around really worked out great for us. At least Unions have a mandate for workers and are not a private entity only beholding to whomever takes the envelope.
The unions have agreements in place which must be adhered to by the current government no more or less than Labour.

Nijmegen wrote: »

and well, we've seen how the holier than thou champaign socialists have been spending our money. Just because he has a beard and is screaming about the "wurker" doesn't mean he's not enjoying his €100k+ salary, expense account, board memberships and junket opportunities.

So 'they're all the same'? Well done working in the 'beard', that ol' chestnut cracks me up and the 'wurker' line had me rolling...my eyes.
I agree all parties need to commit to radical change, but lets lay off the clichés. You know like FFail members being greasy bastards....well actually...
FG's promise of doing away with ministerial cars, should be a small footnote not a policy to brag about.

Callan57

Big Mouth wrote: »

Too many little angry man "protest" threads here, although this isn't as embarrassing as the Armed Revolt thread, (Armed with what? A butter knife. Don't make me laugh)

They way things are now I doubt any Politician would file dodgy expenses and I do hope the ones who did / or do are punished but for gods sake we should be more worried about getting the country back on track ASAP.

Get over that hurdle then worry about the smaller things.....

Oh God Yea lets just screw the few remaining poor taxpayers & then get back to business as usual.
We can all be back here again in 10-20 years, expenses, cars, drivers, Galway tents, private jets, bonus payments etc etc
Now why can't we just accept that 'we are where we are' and move on.

My big worry is that we will forget & nothing will ever change.:(

flutered

every second poster is claiming that labour and the trade unions are intertwined, where as in fact it is dff, our former t-shock done quite well out of his friendship with the unions, even when there was a breakdown in labour relations who did the employers turn to, did not his mentor haughy have a potraith comissioned and presented to michael mullen, during the time he told us to tighten our belts, while he was wearing designer shirts the price of which the working man could not earn in a month,

Nijmegen

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

*yawn*

FFail being tied to every private interest with enough money to spread around really worked out great for us. At least Unions have a mandate for workers and are not a private entity only beholding to whomever takes the envelope.

No, the unions are (for the most part) beholding to their members, the majority of the influential ones whom are public sector and who have in all fairness been riding out the recession largely untouched compared to other segments of society.

Union leaders and union members are also two worlds apart. I'm sure most union members on the average industrial wage or below were delighted to hear about their leaders on the boards of such notable state agencies as FAS, or the junket training fund given to unions on which a quarter of taxi journeys were between 7pm and 4am between pubs, restaurants and hotels.

I agree about Fianna Fail.

The unions have agreements in place which must be adhered to by the current government no more or less than Labour.

Yes, the deal that says that when we're earning €30bn and spending €55bn and need to make cuts, we can't make them out of the huge amount of public spending that goes on public sector pay.

I think even Labour know that deal is a non-runner. They're just not man enough to tell us before the election.

So 'they're all the same'? Well done working in the 'beard', that ol' chestnut cracks me up and the 'wurker' line had me rolling...my eyes.
I agree all parties need to commit to radical change, but lets lay off the clichés. You know like FFail members being greasy bastards....well actually...

Yes, I do believe that at the top be they red, blue, green or yellow politicians, union leaders, bankers, senior civil servants... They're not enduring very much pain compared to the average joe in the street, and they didn't complain very much while their salaries, bonuses (I'm sorry, salaries), expenses or junket funds were going through the ceiling.

They're also not too quick to hand any of it back. Jack O'C was on the radio a few months back and said his salary was fair, and 'more akin to middle management in the private sector.'

I tell you, I wish I had started working in companies like Jack knows about.

The only true idealogue who puts his money where his socialistic mouth is, that I know of, is Joe Higgins. He gets more brownie points from me, a businessman and a capitalist through and through, than any other politician of any other party.

FG's promise of doing away with ministerial cars, should be a small footnote not a policy to brag about.

Agreed, wholly. The whole system needs a change, top to bottom.

Liam Byrne

Well, for all 3, I've gotten automated replies from some unknown and unelected people that the emails weren't sent to.

I probably wasn't expecting much better, but I was hoping.

Big Mouth

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Well, for all 3, I've gotten automated replies from some unknown and unelected people that the emails weren't sent to.

I probably wasn't expecting much better, but I was hoping.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: Yeah you should have at least got a face to face meeting with Brian Cowen and other members of the Cabinet. Its disgusting that they didn't do that or even have your letter read out as lead piece on Prime Time.

The cheek of them to send you these shabby auto relpies, have they got nothing better to do at the moment?

Ah nuts

Good work Liam. Who said people power was gone.

Liam Byrne

Well I did get a reply today from (a representative of) Eamonn Gilmore, and it indicated that those who claimed this have copped themselves on and backed down.

Anyone heard about this climbdown of the con-men from any other sources ?

Lenny Lovett

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Well I did get a reply today from (a representative of) Eamonn Gilmore, and it indicated that those who claimed this have copped themselves on and backed down.

Anyone heard about this climbdown of the con-men from any other sources ?

Yeah... On The Right Hook Newsreader was saying that they had withdrawn the claim. Anyway the people involved said that it was all a big misunderstanding don't you know :rolleyes: . They had never intended to get money for it... They merely felt it would look bad for their attendance record so that's why they did it. Imagine standing up in front of a Judge and trying to feed him that ****? He'd have you down the cells like greased lightening...

Liam Byrne

Is there - naaawww, it couldn't be - is there ANY chance that an email from me actually got results ?

FFS, if there's any chance that that could even be remotely true, we should start emailing to complain about all of their corruption and pocket-lining activities!!!!

Mind you, can a mail server take that much traffic (population of 4.5 million x at least 10 sickening revelations per week) ?

NewHillel

bamboozle wrote: »

from dictionary.com
expenses,
a. charges incurred during a business assignment or trip.

b. money paid as reimbursement for such charges: to receive a salary and expenses.

if these TD's were not on dail business how can they claim expenses?
the lack of leadership from FF Govt on such simple issues as this just clarifies for me how they'll never get us out of this mess cause their greed is getting in the way of leading by example and making simple changes to get their own dirty snouts out of the trough.

I agree, low standards in high(ish) places. However, the practice is also widespread accross the public sector. The only answer is receipted expenses, like the private sector. (With no ifs or buts.)

carobu

NewHillel wrote: »

I agree, low standards in high(ish) places. However, the practice is also widespread accross the public sector. The only answer is receipted expenses, like the private sector. (With no ifs or buts.)

I am continually amazed at how many people have been sucked in by the Governments plan to play the private sector against the public sector. Please look a little deeper and identify the specific sectors within the public sector that take advantage such as the politicians themselves, officers within the civil service and Hospital Ceo's, directors of services and high level managers, basically alot of the non hands on people. There are also many people within the private sector who have contributed to this major crisis not least the bankers, developers who continue to live the high lifestyle. The issue is not the public versus the private but the highest earners who seem seem to earn amounts of money ordinary people wouldn't even dream of and still get an expense for every thing they can think of.

I do completely agree that all expenses should be receipted as well as a huge reduction in perks politicians and committees and ceo's get.