Car-pooling proposal in bid to cut costs of ‘Ministerial Mercs’

A CAR-POOLING arrangement is to be introduced in a bid to reduce the costs of “Ministerial Mercs” but the Government has admitted that the detail is still to be worked out.

Ministers provoked outrage when they appeared one by one in their chauffeur-driven Mercs for a budget meeting at Farmleigh earlier this year.

In the budget book yesterday, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan pledged that the operational cost of the state car fleet would be reduced by one third over the next two years.