Phone bill may remain a mystery

IDENTIFYING who clocked up a €2,600 bill for premium rate calls to back Michael Healy-Rae on a TV show is likely to be a complicated or even an impossible task.

It seems simple. Someone or some people inside Dáil Éireann rang up a reality TV show hotline continuously over a number of days. Surely it’s just a matter of identifying which TD or senator’s office was used.

But calls are not logged for confidentiality reasons. The Oireachtas say that members are protected under the Constitution, so calls are not tracked.