SF Aengus O'Snodaigh has claimed €50,000 in expenses for Printer Ink

Sully

Was mentioned on tonight's Vinny B show. Sinn Féin TD for Dublin South Central Aengus O'Snodaigh has claimed €50,000 in expenses for Printer Ink over the past two years.

Its a bit of a pain in the backside hearing the "industrial wage" line trotted out by Sinn Fein as if they are doing the country a huge favour financially. There not. Their full wage is the same as the other TDs. They draw it down in full, and donate the remainder to the party. They claim their expenses just as much as other TDs, as seen here, which would bring their wage packet up a hefty sum all the same. Donating to their party isn't benefiting the states coffers. Its benefiting the Sinn Fein party.

Ink isn't cheap and neither is paper to be printing on. Its an awful lot of letters to be sending out to reach that sum though, so I can only assume there is other printing going on such as flyers?

jimmycrackcorm

Sure they have to "donate" everything over their average wage to the party, is it any wonder their tds have to make a few euro.

Sierra Oscar

Very peculiar indeed, SF have some questions to answer on this one. Is O'Snodaigh using taxpayers money to fund the printing of protest leaflets for the SF party? Is O'Snodaigh using taxpayers money to fund the printing of An Phoblacht?

Furthermore as it was an expenses claim, where is O'Snodaigh sourcing these cartridges? Is there a connection to the print publishing company, Coiscéim, which is run by his father?

Also there is the more simplistic question - how do you manage to spend nearly €500 on printing cartridges per week?

Bannasidhe

Sully wrote: »

Was mentioned on tonight's Vinny B show. Sinn Féin TD for Dublin South Central Aengus O'Snodaigh has claimed €50,000 in expenses for Printer Ink over the past two years.

*Looks at Ireland - facepalms in despair.*

Kinski

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Also there is the more simplistic question - how do you manage to spend nearly €500 on printing cartridges per week?

Could easily spend that if you were printing a lot of colour documents (like, er, party leaflets) and purchasing new ones instead of refills. Those cartridges are expensive.

Should've got himself a laser printer...:pac:

Terrontress

It's a grand a week, allowing for his office to shut for a week over Christmas and a week in the summer.

It would want to be some ink.

yourpics

TD's have access to stationary in the Dáil and the Seanad.

I recently received a letter from a government minister and it was clear that the paper and envelope were supplied by the Dáil.

southsiderosie

OP, do you have a link or something with more specifics? I'd be curious to see if these were general printing costs, or what they were specifically spending just on ink cartridges.

And just to be a bit contrarian here, does anyone know what TDs normally spend on printing? In my experience with political advocacy work, 1000/month in printing costs is not actually that much money, especially if his office issues monthly constituent newsletters in hardcopy and the like.

amacachi

southsiderosie wrote: »

And just to be a bit contrarian here, does anyone know what TDs normally spend on printing? In my experience with political advocacy work, 1000/month in printing costs is not actually that much money, especially if his office issues monthly constituent newsletters in hardcopy and the like.

Full list of everyone's expenses: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlxJrxiwB44XdGJZcG0tUVI2aWVGZzdkUThWZG1FTHc#gid=0
WUAG (1 representative) is the party with the most expenses per person, after them it's Fianna Fail with Sinn Fein just behind. The other TDs in his constituency spent ~32k, ~22k, ~32k and ~22k while he spent ~32k. I would have thought that 25/32k per year going on printer ink would be a little disproportionate.

I do find it amazing how consistent each TD's spending is from month-to-month (maybe it's yearly and then divided, not sure of the point if so) and also how the same figures crop up for different TDs from similar areas. Obviously they're all staying in the same hotels and not shopping around whatsoever for transport.:rolleyes:

femur61

What was he printing? How much ink do you need to print Euros, sorry they have moved on from their shaddy past!

southsiderosie

OK, I'm going to move this over to the Cafe because this seems to be a bit of ado about nothing, plus I get the sense that there are a lot more bad puns coming. :pac:

Please keep it semi-civilized though folks.

SSR

nacimroc

I presumed he has resigned / been fired after being caught stealing an unusable amount of stuff ?? :mad::mad:

Pompey Magnus

God love the Irish, we love to complain about TD's disappearing once they get elected only to surface when there is an election looming. Then when we get a story about a TD who presumably is very active in distributing leaflets to his constituency we hammer him for it.

ThisRegard

There's a difference between actively distributing leaflets, and spamming people, if he has indeed used the ink how he claims it was used and hasn't set up a printing business as a sideline.

With the amount of ink he used he printed enough pages so that the electorate in his constituency would have received over 40 pages of paper from him. To put it in context, if there's at least two adults of voting age in a household, that household would have received on average 81 pages through their door.

Nijmegen

I don't think there's a lot of ado about nothing. The Journal has a good explainer.

He took €55,000 of printer cartridges in 2 years printing leaflets for his constituency. The Oireachtas has since brought in a €2,000 limit for members following this.

It's one example of how politicians take the mickey when it comes to spending public money. They have to represent themselves, but €55,000 in 2 years is a lot of representing.

Tabnabs

He made a defence of the situation on Newstalk this morning, it sounds like he's also using the Dail printers to add to the bulk?

http://www.newstalk.ie/2012/news/sf-td-defends-taking-e50000-worth-of-print-cartridges/

Tipp Man

Daylight robbery is what it is

He needs a good grilling on this

Chuck Stone

That's cost the tax payer a fair few squid.

mike65

Can any Dublin South Central readers tell of sightings of O'Snodaigh at car boot sales with a box of ink carts

kippy

Someone summed it up well in an earlier post.
There is definetly an attitude of: It's not MY money, however I am ALLOWED to claim up to a certain amount, why not claim every penny or spend every penny for that matter.

The worrying thing is this attitude may permeate into the Civil/Public service when it comes to making decisions over certain aspects.

Sully

Curly Judge wrote: »

I wish to politely object to this being moved to the Cafe.
This is a serious thread on a disgraceful waste of public money and should not be sidelined.

Completely agree tbh. Its not a chit-chat, its about how one TD is ripping into the tax payer fund on crazy spending for his anti-everything leaflets and letters that seem to be going out on an alarming level. But best take it to PM rather than derail the thread any further me thinks.

Here is the article in the Indo. Don't think it appears in the printed edition.

SINN FEIN TD Aengus O Snodaigh today admitted taking computer print cartridges to the value of €50,000 over two years, but said that he had done nothing wrong.

The Dublin South Central representative said that the cartridges, from the Dail stationery stores, had been used in his constituency office for constituency material.

The Irish Daily Mail reports today that Mr O Snodaigh took three toner packs – valued at an average of €130 – each day the Dail sat in 2007. The total value was €25,969.

In 2008 he took 219 print cartridges valued at €24,701 bringing the two year total value to €50,671.

It was enough to print 1,760 letters a day or a total of 3.25m single page letters – more than 337 letters to each of the 4,825 people who gave him their first preference votes in the 2007 General Election, the newspaper says.

Speaking on Morning Ireland Mr O Snodaigh denied that he was printing election material, which is against the rules. He said the ink was for material for his constituents who received regular correspondence from his office.

Up to 2009 print toner kits were available in unlimited quantities and free of charge to TDs. The rules changed at the end of that year and were further modified in 2010.

TDs are now limited to cartridges up to the value of €2,000 per year and Senators are limited to €1,300. They must reimburse the State for any usage above these limits.

Source: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/sf-td-says-printer-cartridges-worth-50k-he-took-from-dail-were-for-constituency-work-3033049.html

ayeboy

Curly Judge wrote: »

I wish to politely object to this being moved to the Cafe.
This is a serious thread on a disgraceful waste of public money and should not be sidelined.

I totally agree. The moderator thinks this isnt a big deal?? Its day light robbery and O'Snodaigh deserves the sack.

Paparazzo

I moved to Dublin South Central a few years ago and was looking up the TD's to find out who's there. Anyway, from Aengus's wiki page:

In October 2002, five men in Snodaigh's constituency were arrested after discovery of a van in County Wicklow containing a sledgehammer, a black balaclava, a pickaxe handle, two-way radios, and a fluorescent jacket with the word "Garda" on it, along with election posters reading 'Sinn Féin No 1 Aengus Ó Snodaigh'. In a nearby Nissan Almera (with false numberplates) they found a blue flashing beacon, a stun gun, a canister of CS gas and a roll of masking tape.

Funny enough, that bit was edited out around election time. Good to see it back in!

Pompey Magnus

ayeboy wrote: »

I totally agree. The moderator thinks this isnt a big deal?? Its day light robbery and O'Snodaigh deserves the sack.

You do realise last year he still claimed less than the average amount in expenses claimed by TD's, so chances are if he was replaced it would mean someone who has even higher expenses would replace him.

And how exactly would you sack someone who did not act illegally and spent within his allocated budget?

kippy

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

You do realise last year he still claimed less than the average amount in expenses claimed by TD's, so chances are if he was replaced it would mean someone who has even higher expenses would replace him.

And how exactly would you sack someone who did not act illegally and spent within his allocated budget?

This is the crux of the issues we have in this country.
Legally he appears to have been well within his rights but morally and ethicilly he wasn't. Especially in times of "austerity"
He's not the only one who acts in this manner. It has been commonplace for years in this country that a percentage of every professions has acted in this manner and gotten away with it.
The only way to ensure it doesnt happen is to set and actively enforce strict rules on what people can and cannot do. Yeah, the rules are changing but its taking time.
You only have to look at how we have treated people like Aherne, O Donohoue, Callelly and many more to see the good, law abiding, tax paying citizen has been walked all over by the political class.

scholar007

What happened to all the empty cartridges? Who recycled them or were they dumped?

SEPT 23 1989

Thats more than a small print company would use in a year

Pompey Magnus

jmayo wrote: »

How much did callely run up on dodgy invoices for mobile phones ?

Is there evidence suggesting O Snodaigh was doing anything underhanded when claiming for these expenses?

scholar007

scholar007 wrote: »

What happened to all the empty cartridges? Who recycled them or were they dumped?

Maybe they were "disappeared"!

Bits_n_Bobs

Seemingly it was for "literature". That's grand so, as long as it was not for "propaganda".

kippy

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Is there evidence suggesting O Snodaigh was doing anything underhanded when claiming for these expenses?

I'll say this again, while what he did may not have been illegal (in the same vein as what callelly allegedly done), it certainly was not morally or ethically correct.

I suspect SF will eject him from the party over this, as it would not look good amoungst their grass roots if he were to be supported by the party.

(As an aside - the timing and publicity of this is interesting. In the few days after SF are shown to have made gains in the polls at the expense of FF this dirt comes out.......)

RGDATA!

Kinski wrote: »

Should've got himself a laser printer...:pac:

beat me to it.

confused, however, by why the Irish Times is using "ink" and "toner" interchangably in their report, as though they were the same thing (ink obviously = inkjet, toner = laser printer)

anyone seen a better source for what kind of printers they have? seems incredible that they would actually be using inkjets for the kind of volumes they'd be printing in the dáil.

Tipp Man

This is obviously a scam of the highest order

In 2009 or 2010 they brought in an allowance @ €2,000 per TD, so it was obvioiusly felt that €2,000 was sufficent to meet the annual needs of a TD. He was taking 12 times that amount annually

now there is very little chance that they would set the allowance at anything under what a reasonable TD would use in the year, they will never be out of pocket, so i would like to know how he is 12 times over this new allowance

dolallyoh

Disgraceful, who oversees the supplies to the Dail. They should be demoted.

scholar007

scholar007 wrote: »

Maybe they were "disappeared"!

Looks like the CIA can stop looking for the printer bomber mastermind looks like it wasn't AL Qaeda afterall, i thought he would of perfected it before he used up that amount though..:P. Seriously though the hypocrisy of this party is really starting to stink.

Raiser

I'll give this a 10 day half-life before people stop muttering indignantly and 'Ctrl-P Aengus' goes back to laughing at us all while filling his pockets.......

- Interesting re. the Daddy O'Snodaigh point, also I wonder if those products were marked up exorbitantly to go for ~€130 etc. as I doubt our Politicians shop around somehow meaning somebody somewhere is buying sportscars, yachts and sunny seaside villas etc.

Pompey Magnus

Raiser wrote: »

I'll give this a 10 day half-life before people stop muttering indignantly and 'Ctrl-P Aengus' goes back to laughing at us all while filling his pockets.......

You are accusing him of personally financially benefiting from this? Do you want to go into details on this more serious accusation?

Sierra Oscar

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

ayeboy wrote: »

I totally agree. The moderator thinks this isnt a big deal?? Its day light robbery and O'Snodaigh deserves the sack.

And how exactly would you sack someone who did not act illegally and spent within his allocated budget?

There are regulations determining what use you can put resources provided by the Oireachtas to. Just because you claim within the allowable amount does not make it a given that those resources were used in accordance with the rules. Furthermore, it doesn't make claiming 50K on printing any more ethical.

Joe Duffy is set to discuss this in a bit in anycase.

ayeboy

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

You do realise last year he still claimed less than the average amount in expenses claimed by TD's, so chances are if he was replaced it would mean someone who has even higher expenses would replace him.

And how exactly would you sack someone who did not act illegally and spent within his allocated budget?

I didnt say sack him, I said he desrves the sack but thats what's wrong with the country when those in power can take the piss in this manner with no consequences.

But what's a hundred times worse is peoples' attitudes (like yours)...ah sure the next man will only be worse!!

kippy

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

You are accusing him of personally financially benefiting from this? Do you want to go into details on this more serious accusation?

Lets take a step back here.
He may not have directly financially benefited from this. (the 50K didnt go into his own pocket obviously, it was the value of toner/ink used)
One has to ask what this toner/ink was used for however. He may have benefited from that either directly or indirectly and that 50K worth of ink gives him a direct cost benefit against someone who didnt have access to that amount of ink. One only has to look at the BIK tax laws to see that there is precedence for this type of logic.

Pompey Magnus

kippy wrote: »

Lets take a step back here.
He may not have directly financially benefited from this. (the 50K didnt go into his own pocket obviously, it was the value of toner/ink used)
One has to ask what this toner/ink was used for however. He may have benefited from that either directly or indirectly and that 50K worth of ink gives him a direct cost benefit against someone who didnt have access to that amount of ink. One only has to look at the BIK tax laws to see that there is precedence for this type of logic.

Right, but TD's get expenses for a whole range of things, O Snodaigh claimed less than the average TD in the Dail claimed last year, so in this one area he may have benefited greatly but he would have had to have been extremely frugal in virtually every other area to compensate so that he would end in the lower half of TD's expense claims. In these areas his competition would have had the advantage of greater resource spend over him.

kippy

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Right, but TD's get expenses for a whole range of things, O Snodaigh claimed less than the average TD in the Dail claimed last year, so in this one area he may have benefited greatly but he would have had to have been extremely frugal in virtually every other area to compensate so that he would end in the lower half of TD's expense claims. In these areas his competition would have had the advantage of greater resource spend over him.

He may have last year, this 50k in toner covers 2007 and 2008, not last year.

The defense of "the other guy is worse" isn't, in my opinion, valid.

Yeah, he's not the only one operating in this manner, I've already stated that.

Sierra Oscar

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

kippy wrote: »

Lets take a step back here.
He may not have directly financially benefited from this. (the 50K didnt go into his own pocket obviously, it was the value of toner/ink used)
One has to ask what this toner/ink was used for however. He may have benefited from that either directly or indirectly and that 50K worth of ink gives him a direct cost benefit against someone who didnt have access to that amount of ink. One only has to look at the BIK tax laws to see that there is precedence for this type of logic.

Right, but TD's get expenses for a whole range of things, O Snodaigh claimed less than the average TD in the Dail claimed last year, so in this one area he may have benefited greatly but he would have had to have been extremely frugal in virtually every other area to compensate so that he would end in the lower half of TD's expense claims. In these areas his competition would have had the advantage of greater resource spend over him.

That does not clear up the argument that he abused this specific expenses allowance.

O'Snodaigh insists that this is all above board and he was merely printing information for use in his local constituency.

This begs the question - how do you manage to print 2.5 million leaflets over two years in a constituency with 50 thousand households. It does not add up.

jbkenn

Well... paper never refused ink... and neither did Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Bannasidhe

It seems to me to be quite simple. TDs were allowed to help themselves to ink and every day he was in Leinster House O Snodaigh shoved 3 in his pocket on his way out.

Technically he was allowed to but seriously.. my work place allowed me unlimited photocopies - didn't mean I was making millions of them. I made exactly what I needed.

southsiderosie

MOD NOTE:

Normally moderation isn't addressed on-thread, but let me address the movement to the Cafe issue.

The thread started with no external link or information, but a write-up of a radio report. This is what ensued:

Kristopherus wrote: »

Not to mention banknotes:D:D:D:D:D

F-Stop wrote: »

Caught CMYK handed.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

It's that damn tricolour.....we really should have just a green flag and get him a multi-colour-cartridges printer!

Bannasidhe wrote: »

*Looks at Ireland - facepalms in despair.*

Lapin wrote: »

Proof that the Shinners just cannot let go of their colourful past.

.
.
.
.
.
..............................:pac:

Be honest: does this look like a Politics thread, or an AH thread?

I kept it open because I do think that TD expenses are a serious issue, but given that half of the responses on the first page didn't seem to take it so seriously, it seemed more appropriate for the Cafe - which was created to address exactly this kind of posting.

If you have any other questions, please PM me rather than posting on-thread.

SSR

EDIT: I've received a few PMs on this, so rather than infinite back and forth via PM let's bring the convo to the "A discussion on the rules" thread - there are broader issues here about the Cafe vs. the main forum, threadlocking, etc. anyway that are worth discussing.

Pompey Magnus

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

That does not clear up the argument that he abused this specific expenses allowance.

O'Snodaigh insists that this is all above board and he was merely printing information for use in his local constituency.

This begs the question - how do you manage to print 2.5 million leaflets over two years in a constituency of 50 thousand household. It does not add up.

Well I am sure there are people looking into that at this moment in order to keep this story going and if they discover that he was not using the ink for leaflets etc for his constituents we can deal with that then if such evidence exists.

The story at the minute is the amount spent, not what it was used for as that is just unfounded speculation.

kippy

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Well I am sure there are people looking into that at this moment in order to keep this story going and if they discover that he was not using the ink for leaflets etc for his constituents we can deal with that then if such evidence exists.

The story at the minute is the amount spent, not what it was used for as that is just unfounded speculation.

The story is evolving. The reporter who broke the story was just on Radio 1 in the past few minutes advising that based on the information they had gotten from O Snodaigh today, they have submitted more FOI requests to determine:
How many pages had each of the two printers that O Snodaigh said he had been using these toners in printed.
How many reams of paper had O Snodaigh taken from the same stores (enough to print 3.5 million pages is a lot of paper)
What exactly the ink was used for?
The amount of money spent and what it was used for are inherently linked.



You seem to be very defensive of O Snodaigh, I fail to see why.

jmayo

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Is there evidence suggesting O Snodaigh was doing anything underhanded when claiming for these expenses?

Depends on your definition of underhanded.
He may not have been doing something illegal but he sure as hell was doing something very unusual.

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Right, but TD's get expenses for a whole range of things, O Snodaigh claimed less than the average TD in the Dail claimed last year, so in this one area he may have benefited greatly but he would have had to have been extremely frugal in virtually every other area to compensate so that he would end in the lower half of TD's expense claims. In these areas his competition would have had the advantage of greater resource spend over him.

For a start that is not a fair comparison since he is a Dublin based TD who lives within 15 odd miles of the Dail so would not AFAIK be able to draw down subsistence expenses that rural TDs could.
Also I can't see his travel expenses rival those of a TD from outside Dublin.

So unless he was pulling a callely and commutting from his "home" in Dingle then his expenses should be in the lower half anyway.
So less of the lauding him on this one.

southsiderosie wrote: »

MOD NOTE:

Normally moderation isn't addressed on-thread, but let me address the movement to the Cafe issue.

The thread started with no external link or information, but a write-up of a radio report. This is what ensued:


Be honest: does this look like a Politics thread, or an AH thread?

I kept it open because I do think that TD expenses are a serious issue, but given that half of the responses on the first page didn't seem to take it so seriously, it seemed more appropriate for the Cafe - which was created to address exactly this kind of posting.

If you have any other questions, please PM me rather than posting on-thread.

SSR

Actually I want to discuss this and on here.
Otherwise it will be shelved in the background.

There have been a few cases AFAIK where topics have been shifted because they have been deemed not lofty enough for discussion in these forums.
Yet they are topics of discussion in real political circles.

This is currently the most discussed political item in the media today and the fact that this forum choses to discuss it in the joke section of the forum says more about this forum than it does the topic.

People may joke about it, but it is still a very serious item and some of us would actually like to discuss it seriously and in the politics forum.

I await the usual mod warning for daring to challenge the status quo.

Pompey Magnus

The Irish Daily Mail reports today that Mr O Snodaigh took three toner packs – valued at an average of €130 – each day the Dail sat in 2007. The total value was €25,969

In 2008 he took 219 print cartridges valued at €24,701 bringing the two year total value to €50,671

http://www.sinnfein.ie/files/2009/SF_TD_Expenses.pdf

That is odd, his total expenses for 2007 are given as €22,973 but the Mail say he claimed €25,969 in toner alone. Both can't be right...

Sunnyisland

Maybe o snodaigh thought they where a different sort of cartridges