President McAleese to donate gifts to State

UDP

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1026/mcaleesem.html

President Mary McAleese is to voluntarily donate to the State over 60 gifts she received during her 14 years in office.
The items have been independently valued at over €100,000.
According to the guidelines governing gifts outlined by the Standard in Public Office Commission, any office holder, apart from the President, has to return items valued over €650 back to the State.

Am I missing something here? Mary McAleese is voluntarily donating to the state gifts with what look like an estimate average value of €1666.67 which makes probably the vast majority (if not all) of the gifts above the €650 limit. How is that voluntary? or is it that these guidelines are not normally taken seriously because they appear to be guidelines rather than rules?

stargazer 68

UDP wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1026/mcaleesem.html
Am I missing something here? Mary McAleese is voluntarily donating to the state gifts with what look like an estimate average value of €1666.67 which makes probably the vast majority (if not all) of the gifts above the €650 limit. How is that voluntary? or is it that these guidelines are not normally taken seriously because they appear to be guidelines rather than rules?

According to the news last night the President is exempt from that rule.

UDP

Dovies wrote: »

According to the news last night the President is exempt from that rule.

Thanks - missed that from the article.

Fair play to her then since that is some amount of worth of gifts to give back.

Jaysoose

Would rather she give them to charity so some good might come of her gesture.

Atlantic Dawn

My favourite part....

The rest of the items will be given to the Department of the Taoiseach where a decision will be made on where they will be housed.

Most likely they will cost many times what they are worth to store and a lease for 25 years will be signed with a "private individual", similar to the E-Voting machines. It would be better to auction them and give the cash to a needie cause like the people flooded out of their homes this week.

jimmycrackcorm

UDP wrote: »

Thanks - missed that from the article.

Fair play to her then since that is some amount of worth of gifts to give back.

I wouldn't even begrudge her keeping the most expensive gift which is her presidential pension.

Hotblack Desiato

Jaysoose wrote: »

Would rather she give them to charity so some good might come of her gesture.

Yeah, so the charity can sell them and use the money to pay their CEO 160k... There seems to be a huge disconnect between the perception of people of how charities work in this country, and how they really work. Just look at the Irish Red Cross.

Chucky the tree

ninja900 wrote: »

Yeah, so the charity can sell them and use the money to pay their CEO 160k... There seems to be a huge disconnect between the perception of people of how charities work in this country, and how they really work. Just look at the Irish Red Cross.

Also seems to be a huge disconnect on how they should be run optimally.

MadsL

This completely pointless, they are nice momentos of a life in office. Ridiculous empty gesture to be pressured into returning these to the State and insulting to the givers to auction them.

Imagine ebaying your Christmas gifts each year. :rolleyes:

HugoBradyBrown

If anyone has ever seen the 'gifts' that Heads of State receive, they would realise that no sane person would want most of them around the house. The National Museum in Kildare Street had a largely unvisited room until a few years ago, acting as a kind of Presidential Lumber Room, where various items presented to presidents were put on display. There, under the layers of dust, one could marvel at things like the huge and gaudy Arabian Camel Saddle, given to Mr de Valera by the Libyan head of state (a Mr Gadaffi at the time) in the early 1970's. This was surrounded by other hideous items that would be rejected at any respectable car boot sale.

Similarly, in one of Alan Bennett's little TV plays, A Question of Attribution, there is a scene where the queen of England is showing "Sir" Anthony Blunt (the Soviet spy who was double-jobbing as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures) around some of her collection of horrors: carved rhinoceros horns in the shape of mermaids, straw sombreros on wooden models of Mexican donkeys and brass bands carved from lumps of Yorkshire coal.

Mrs McAleese in this, as in everything else she has done, is being entirely rational and surefooted. Nobody would want the rubbish, and imagine the dusting that would lie ahead of her!

Now Mr Haughey, a somewhat different case, seemed to have deemed it to be quite acceptable for him to pocket the extremely valuable jewel-encrusted gold scimitars and similar items given to him in his role as Head of Government by Arab potentates. And his conscience out in Drumcondra found that behaviour entirely unexceptional.



Hugo Brady Brown

Son Of A Vidic

You wouldn't have President Bertie showing such class, thank God we were spared 'it'.

Jaysoose

ninja900 wrote: »

Yeah, so the charity can sell them and use the money to pay their CEO 160k... There seems to be a huge disconnect between the perception of people of how charities work in this country, and how they really work. Just look at the Irish Red Cross.

Sigh.