Minister upstages bosses with €13,000 photo splurge

PUBLICITY-hungry junior minister Ivor Callely’s office ran up a photography bill three times as big as that of his Cabinet boss while he was at the Health Department.

Mr Callely’s spending on photos totalled €13,542 in the first nine months of 2004 - dwarfing the €4,200 spent by then Health Minister Micheál Martin.

Mr Callely’s office accounted for more than two thirds of health’s €19,700 ministerial photography spend in 2004, even though he only served in the department for three-quarters of the year before being moved to Transport in the September reshuffle.

Between January and September 2004, Mr Callely spent 17 times more on photographs than the incoming Health Minister, Tánaiste Mary Harney, did in the following year.

Sean Power TD, who succeeded Mr Callely in the Health Department, spent €918 on photography over the next year - 14 times less than his predecessor.

Some of the money spent by Mr Calley in that period was directly linked to Ireland’s presidency of the EU for the first half of 2004.

Figures obtained by the Irish Examiner under Freedom of Information legislation show that Mr Callely’s office photography bill was equivalent to nearly a quarter of that amassed by the Department of the Taoiseach in 2004.

That figure is even more extraordinary as the €56,600 photographic bill for the Taoiseach’s Department takes into account money spent by the Government Press Office, Government Information Service and Presidency Press Office.

The Taoiseach’s bill also covered official visits to Italy and Finland, the US-EU summit at Dromoland Castle and numerous top level European meetings.

The spending on photography by Mr Callely’s office also ran ahead Mr Martin’s during 2003.

During that year Mr Callely’s bill hit €4,350 - well over twice that of the €1,820 figure attributed to the Health Minister.

Mr Callely’s love of having his photograph taken has also got him into hot water in his role as a junior transport minister.

The appearance of his face on posters advertising this year’s Dublin Christmas congestion-easing initiative Operation Freeflow drew widespread criticism in the Dáil, with Labour demanding an official probe into the matter.