Flight shows how country has gone off-course

DEPUTY Michael Ring is to be congratulated for raising the issue of the president using a helicopter to go to a football match in Co Mayo because it gets right to the heart of why Ireland got into this mess and why it has so spectacularly failed to get out of it.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan claims it takes about €53 billion to run the country, but where is the evidence he needs such an amount — why not €40bn or €70bn?

If we were to get a line-by-line itemised bill for every cent the state spends — just as you do at the supermarket showing what you’ve spent — we’d find that an extra pension payment to a former minister here and there, a helicopter trip by the president here and there, claims by TDs for mileage and attendance allowances, the cost of ministers’ families using the state car as a personal taxi service or joining them on foreign trips at the taxpayers’ expense all add up.