Harney Flies To Leitrim At Our Expense

Fidelis

Ireland.com

"Informed sources confirmed the CASA aircraft costs £2,000 an hour to operate, excluding air crew salaries."

That's nice of her.

Victor

Of course this might mean the total costs was less than £3,000 seeing as it would only take 35 minutes to fly to Sligo. Of course why they couldn't use the Beechcraft or a helicopter is another matter.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2002/0118/1989531321HMHARNEY.html

He said an hour-long flight on a CASA cost €900. The flight to Sligo took 50 minutes each way, which meant a total cost of €1,500 for the return trip. The figures were confirmed by a Department of Defence spokesman.

132 miles from Dublin to Sligo @ 245 mph is not equal to 50 minutes?????

gandalf

According to Today FM news this morning, the EU commission is investigating this as the plane was purchased using a percentage of EU funds and one of the conditions of its use was that 90% of its time was to be spent on Fisheries projects.

Basically this was blatent mis-use of this aircraft for what in reality was a favour to a friend. Saying that she met all the important business leaders of the town at the off-license opening is complete and utter drivel.

This governments arrogance is really getting out of hand.

Gandalf.

bonkey

Originally posted by Victor
132 miles from Dublin to Sligo @ 245 mph is not equal to 50 minutes?????

Planes do have to accelerate, decelerate, and generally dont fly in perfectly straight lines

As for the issue at hand....just another government official using public expenditure to personal benefit. Move on, nothing to see.

jc

Robbo

The Phoenix reckoned it cost the state about €10k in its entirety.

And all because Bertie was using the Government plane at the time and Mary had to be back quickly for an appointment (at midnight, naturally).

Hobbes

Leave her be, have you ever used Bus Eireann? It would of killed her!

The Gopher

Ah well,shes fierce popular up in Leitrim so they had to pull out the stops.Well-popular if the Dont Feed the Gondalas trip up there is anything to go by.There was some wee town up therte yrs ago where the politico held a big meeting.DFTG went to find out the ppls opinions.
Pat Mc Donald is talking with a young lad of about 15 or so.
"What do you think of all the politicians coming up here?"
Boy-Ah well,not that bothered[or something similiar various small talk]
Pat-I suppose all the young lads fancy Mary Harney?
Boy-[anwsering as if he didnt want his interview to end up on the cutting room floor]Ah yeah shes fierce sexy aint she pat?:D

seamus

The adrian kennedy phoneshow tried to contact her about it, and one of her spokesmen said, 'The opening of an off-licence may not seem so big in Dublin because we have so many, but in rural areas it is quite a monumental time'. Oh ffs, how dumb do these ****ers think we are?? If she was late - tough!! It would have cost us far less for her poxy friend to delay the opening by an hour or 2 while Mary drove there instead of flying. Flying! Across Ireland! Ffs, the country is tiny, you can drive pretty much anywhere in 3 and a half hours!!! :mad:

thereal_unsane

Originally posted by seamus
The adrian kennedy phoneshow tried to contact her about it, and one of her spokesmen said, 'The opening of an off-licence may not seem so big in Dublin because we have so many, but in rural areas it is quite a monumental time'. Oh ffs, how dumb do these ****ers think we are?? If she was late - tough!! It would have cost us far less for her poxy friend to delay the opening by an hour or 2 while Mary drove there instead of flying. Flying! Across Ireland! Ffs, the country is tiny, you can drive pretty much anywhere in 3 and a half hours!!! :mad:

Yo, i dont see Mary Harney bitchin at y'all whenever you go spending HER money on whatever you spend it on. So give her some slack. Aight.

Von

America has Bush and Enron.
Italy has Berlusconi taking over the foreign minister's job.
The UK has trains can't stay on the rails and they have to ship their ill to France.
Argentina has their bit of bother.
We have Harney and a Leitrim offy.

As long as our political controversies stay this pathetic we should be happy.

Coyote

Originally posted by thereal_unsane


Yo, i dont see Mary Harney bitchin at y'all whenever you go spending HER money on whatever you spend it on. So give her some slack. Aight.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????

what drugs are you on ?
when would be spend her money ?
she gets payed by us. the people who pay taxs and pay for the goverment.

franco

If it's not not alright to use the gov. plane to get to such engagements then why should it be alright to use a state car?

Trojan

Originally posted by franco
If it's not not alright to use the gov. plane to get to such engagements then why should it be alright to use a state car?

Are you nuts? Cos it doesn't cost £5k to drive to Leitrim for one thing, and she's entitled to a state car for another.

Also, that plane is supposed to be used for state engagements only 10% of the time, or Europe want their money back.

Al.

Hobbes

Probably because using a state car wouldn't of costed in excess of €2,500+ of the taxpayers money.

TBH if it wasn't a state function I also believe she shouldn't of used the goverment car.

gandalf

Well franco firstly the cost to use the plane is alot higher than if she drove.

Secondly and most importantly the EU put up half the cash to buy these aircraft and they were specifically allocated to Fisherie Patrols. The EU are now investigating the use of the planes and if they find that they are not been used 90% of the time for Fisherie patrols then we (Ireland) could be liable to pay back the EU Millions of Euros.

Thinking about this further what is worse than the fact she used a plane to go to this function, is the fact she went at all. Surely the Taniste has more important duties than opening off-licenses especially when people are losing jobs all over place.

These people do not have a clue really.

Gandalf.

Ri-ra

Didn't a PD member pay for her flight? Saw that in IT I believe...