No one willing to cast first stone in Dáil full of kickback sinners
Embattled ex-minister John O’Donoghue was still humming his tired old tune The Sound of Silence yesterday as his lavish taxpayer-funded lifestyle while in Cabinet was compared in opulence to that which could only be afforded by the likes of Bono and John Bon Jovi.
But unlike Bon Jovi, Mr O’Donoghue did not need to be living on a prayer while he was arts, sports and tourism minister as he was living on an expense account that saw him slide from limo to Lear jet to luxury suite all thanks to the endless generosity of the little people back home.
The taxpayer was effectively hijacked by a six-day flight of fancy on the Government jet in May 2006 for Mr O’Donoghue and his entourage which cost €32,450 and saw him whisked to the Cannes film festival, then to an engagement in his Kerry constituency, back to Cannes, before settling in London.
Only the best €990-a-night hotels were good enough for our Cabinet celeb, or anything less than a limo as car hire for his brief sojourn on the French Riviera, which came in at a whopping €9,619.
And let’s not forget the €2,436 cost of hiring yet another limo to take him to a football match in Berlin as he selflessly represented the Republic at a World Cup tournament the boys in green had failed to qualify for, or indeed the €120 spent on “hiring a hat” for his secretary.
Virtually none of his underlings in the Dáil have put their heads above the parapet to condemn such excess. The usually instantly indignant would-be moral guardians of Fine Gael and Labour are just as meekishly quiet on the matter as their cohorts on the Fianna Fáil benches from where Mr O’Donoghue leapt forward into the Ceann Comhairle’s chair.
But then you can’t really condemn the Oireachtas gravy train when you are busy stuffing your face in its sumptuous buffet car, can you?
Step forward Kerry’s other famous sons, the Healy-Raes, to speak for the nation and condemn the Ceann Comhairle’s “rock star lifestyle” while “Minister for Fun”.
But then the Healy-Raes embody another ugly prop of Ireland’s decrepit political culture – the local blow-back.
Perfected by the master of the dark Dáil arts – Charlie Haughey himself – in the early 1980s, the process sees the constituencies of independent TDs with lobby votes showered with goodies in order to keep weak governments alive.
Pat Rabbitte summed it up best after the last general election when he noted that Jackie Healy-Rae was heading back to Kerry “with his car boot full of gold”.
Mr Healy-Rae’s son Michael, tipped to replace his father as candidate next time out, has joined in the attacks on Kerry rival Mr O’Donoghue, thus pointing up a third major failing of this political system – the dominance of the dynasty.
This is clearly a Republic in name only as Mr O’Donoghue is behaving like Oireachtas royalty and refusing to offer any explanation or justification for his extravagant ministerial lifestyle as he hides behind the dubious excuse that he is now Ceann Comhairle and all enquiries must be addressed to the mandarins at his previous department – as if they pushed him into the limos, Lear jets and luxury hotels with a gun to his head.
Mr O’Donoghue found he could buy virtually anything on his State credit card, but he can’t buy credibility – and what little he has is fast running out as he refuses to offer any apologies for such excess.
The situation is made even more farcical by the fact the whole Dáil “snouts-in-the-trough” expense vulture culture is meant to be cleared up by none other than Mr J O’Donoghue.
The Ceann Comhairle certainly enjoyed himself at the taxpayers’ expense while Minister for Fun – but sadly we know the price of everything Johnny Junket did, but the value of nothing.
