How many civil servants (and their wives) does it take to…
Posted by Maman Poulet on 27 Nov 2008 at 05:43 am | Tagged as: Irish Politics, Uncategorized
In today’s Irish Times report on the trip to Orlando taken by Mary Harney and Rody Molloy and the ministerial recollection on the hairdo’s I am struck by the number of people in the travelling party.
THE THEN tánaiste and minister for enterprise Mary Harney travelled to Orlando, Florida, at the expense of Fás in July 2004 in a party that included the former director general of Fás, Rody Molloy, and his wife, and the then secretary general of Ms Harney’s department, Paul Haran, and his wife.
Mr Molloy announced his resignation on Tuesday following intense controversy over expenditure on trips to Florida, including expensive flights for his wife paid for by Fás. As head of Fás he reported to Ms Harney’s then department.
The flights in July 2004 cost €4,824.07 each. Also on the trip were Ms Harney’s husband, the then chairman of Fás, Brian Geoghegan, Ms Harney’s press secretary and her private secretary.
So that was The Minister, her husband who was chair of FÃ?S, the secretary general of the department and his wife (????), her private secretary and a press secretary. This is on top of all the FAS executives and their spouses…
It was the launch of a training programme – not talks between two warring continents over nuclear missile numbers!
The cost of the hairdo etc. is not a resigning matter – it’s very embarrassing for the Minister that everyone spent a few days thinking that FAS executives were getting their nails done. You’d feel a bit sorry for Mr. Molloy at this rate.
Unlike Damien I think Leo Varadkar would do well to move back to FÃ?Sgate watch, the way contracts were awarded and tenders for millions of Euro not advertised and stop being a silly lad appearing on every radio/tv station that’ll have him calling for Ministerial resignations. A look at regulations for how many civil servants one needs to hold the Minister’s hand is only peripheral but interesting none the less.
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Next time I get to go on a trip abroad for work, I’m insisting that my labrador come with me. That way, they trip is extended to take account of quarantine rules. €5k for a flight to Florida?? What were they providing on that plane?
You are right that this is not about haircuts because if she were to resign on this matter, where what that leave the seriousness of all of the cancer scares, autism funding, Lea’s cross etc etc.
I suspect that the repeated calls for Mary Harney to resign as ministers is in a small way driven by the knowledge that she won’t be standing again for election, that she no longer has a party to worry about and should she step down from being a minister is as likely to take all her toys away and resign from the Dail altogether. Thus causing a bye-election which Frances Fitzgerald would be well placed to win. It’s a longish shot but not so long as to not be worth throwing a few ‘resign, resign’ calls at.
I do have to wonder at these top executives who are such babes in the woods that they need their wives with them to fend off bears or extortionate taxi drivers when overseas.
Ah, lads, did ye not know that bringing your wife with you on a business trip is good safe sex advice, that way ye wont be tempted by ladies of the night, hotel escorts, other colleagues etc. Jeez, if they hadnt brought their wives, gawd knows what the bill might have been.
Marie, if they didn’t bring their wives we might be simply talking about a few movies on the hotel bill. I can’t see that running to the price of first class plane ticket.
Some hotels list internet access as Pay-Per-View/Internet. How do we know they were getting movies and not connecting to the internet for work related stuff?