Covert cop-out on pay-outs, stakeouts and take-outs

BURGERS and chips for stakeouts, pay-offs for snitches and wages for our man in Moscow are just a few of the potential destinations of taxpayers’ money allocated to the Secret Service.

The moulah dished out to Seamus Bond and his spook pals came in for some overt not covert investigation yesterday, but no new information really came to light.

The 392,000 spent by the Secret Service in 2003 has been accounted for and audited, yet not even the State's top finance administrator knows how or where it was spent.

Never shy of admitting he's a Red Under The Bed, Joe Higgins pounced on his chance to turn the spotlight on the spies and subjected Department of Finance chief Tom Considine to a rough interrogation about the funds.

"What does it cover burgers and chips for some secret agent staking out a suspect?" he asked.

Although he was willing to verify that the accounts were in proper order, Mr Considine admitted that's about all he knew.

"The short answer and the long answer is 'I don't know'. It is the only secret vote and I don't know, other than I am satisfied with the procedure," he told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee.

Yet Red Joe was able to interpret the accounts quite clearly.

"Its essentially to pay off informers," the Socialist Party TD suggested.

Dan Boyle, a member of an anti-establishment grouping often seen brandishing tomatoes of mass destruction, added to the speculation about the beneficiaries of the largesse.

"It might be to pay off Our Man In Moscow.

"I do find it curious that we are living in a time of heightened global terrorism and that the funding has been halved," said the Green TD.

The allocation of taxpayers' money to the Secret Service is apparently all above board, however, as it is cleared through the Minister for Finance and then signed by Mr Considine and another official. The cash is channelled through a separate bank account, outside of the normal system.

According to Mr Considine, all ministers have access to the secret services of the Secret Service, but which ministers actually use the secret services of the Secret Service is still a secret.

Even Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell appeared to drop his guard by admitting he was a little in the dark.

"The amount is quite modest and I have been consulted on the ways in which particular items of expenditure might be accounted for," he said.

Presumably, informers are regarded as assets rather than liabilities.