Ministers’ expenses - Excess is not acceptable

WHAT is it about some Government ministers that when they represent this country abroad, they tend to splurge taxpayers’ money as if there was no tomorrow.

Admittedly, they have a tough job and, generally speaking, they’re hard working. Nor would anybody deny their entitlement to stay in a decent hotel. But that doesn’t mean politicians have a God-given right to bask in the luxurious surroundings of hotels where the denizens normally come from the millionaire classes.

The latest case of ministerial extravagance, as reported in the Sunday Tribune, concerns former Arts, Sport and Tourism Minister John O’Donoghue, now Ceann Comhairle. Data released under the Freedom of Information Act shows his department forked out €900 a night for an apartment in a Paris hotel, paid €7,591 on airport pick-ups during a two-day ministerial trip to London.

No doubt, times were better when the Government was wallowing in the excesses of the so-called Celtic Tiger era. But in many eyes, such expenses will smack of the kind of wealth usually associated with a Maharajah or an African despot.

It certainly gives an added edge to the Croagh Patrick homily of Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam who relates the selfishness and materialism of recent times to society’s growing dissatisfaction, dislocation and disintegration.

With Ireland on its knees, more than 400,000 workers unemployed, and vulnerable people targeted by swingeing stealth cutbacks, it is time Finance Minister Brian Lenihan put a stop to the gallop of government ministers who amass inordinate expenses.