Cullen Malaysia trip costs still unclear

THE COST of Transport Minister Martin Cullen's three-day visit to a Malaysian island last year has still not been made public despite criticism that the trip was a misuse of public funding.

Both Minister Cullen and the Department of the Environment were last night unable to say how much the weekend, which took place during an international environmental conference in Malaysia last February, cost.

Neither Minister Cullen nor the Department of Environment have provided the names of representatives of the Malaysian Nature Society with whom the Minister met.

In a parliamentary question last week, the Department of the Environment cited meetings with representatives of the nature society as justification for the trip to the exclusive tropical island resort of Langkawi.

Minister Cullen's spokesman Dan Pender who was present during the weekend along with communications advisor Monica Leech and the Minister's personal secretary last night referred all questions to the Department of the Environment.

But the Department of the Environment said no further information on the trip was available.

Emerging details of the luxury weekend, during which Minister Cullen's party stayed at Malaysia's top five star hotel the Andaman, have already drawn sharp criticism.

Although a 26-strong Irish delegation was in Malaysia throughout February of 2004 for an international environmental conference, the weekend in question saw Minister Cullen's group separate from the official party to fly to Langkawi.

The justification for the trip and the continuing lack of financial information was criticised by Fine Gael's Paul McGrath who said the trip sounded more like leisure than official work.

And the matter, coming as the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) seeks legal advice on whether to launch an inquiry into the hiring of Ms Leech, has once again focused the spotlight on Minister Cullen's actions.

However sources this weekend played down the likelihood of a full investigation by SIPO into the embattled Minister.

Although some SIPO members are known to have favoured launching an investigation, others argued that any such investigation would be more constrained than the Quigley report which has cleared Minister Cullen of any wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that the home of a Dublin barrister with an almost identical name to Monica Leech was broken into in a strikingly similar robbery to one in which the Waterford communications advisor's laptop was stolen.