High price of political ‘favours’

THE controversy over Deputy Kathleen Lynch’s representation on behalf of a convicted paedophile rapist again raises the issue of the value of political representations.

There are some constituents who harass their politicians to get things they are entitled to, but are too lazy to do it themselves.

Or they are ignorant and think they need a representation to get something they have a right to anyway. Or they are chancing their arm hoping that a representation might get them what they have no right to.

Instead of educating the constituent about how to address their problems without needlessly annoying them, politicians are only too eager to make a representation to protect their vote.

An example is Tony Killeen who made more than 220,000 representations in 14 years. That is 60 representations every working day. Is he the exception or the norm?

All these representations have to be read by a public servant who has to formulate a reply which must be researched, cross-checked and reviewed before being signed by some bureaucrat and returned to the politician who then forwards it the constituent. How much of our public service time is wasted processing these representations? What happened to benchmarking and making the public service more efficient?

Our taxes are paying for this because there is no fee to cover the cost of representations. There is a fee for judicial reviews, freedom of information requests and Bord Pleanála appeals, so why should representations be free?

I propose that all representations should be charged €100, plus cost of administration, refundable only if the representation is successful.

This would remove all those pointless representations from lazy, ignorant or dodgy constituents and protect politicians like Lynch, Killeen and Bobby Molloy who just can’t say ‘no’ to representation by or on behalf of murderers and rapists.

Jason FitzHarris

Rivervalley

Swords

Co Dublin