Our man in Vladivostok can’t be expected to live on a paltry pension

THE General Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

What a really, really important body this is. It has a crucial focus, this committee – its brief extends to economic affairs, science, technology and the environment. And the work of this vital committee lies at the very heart of the OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly.

The OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly really, really matters. Why, only recently it was endorsed by none other than the foreign minister of Greece, of all places. At one of their vital, essential meetings in Helsinki, she said “Greece believes in the OSCE, in the work of all its institutions, including the significant role of its Parliamentary Assembly and all its members.”

And no less a personage than the former Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (you’ll be familiar with him, I’m sure), once said: “Your assembly gives the OSCE a direct link to the people. If we did not have the OSCE parliamentary assembly, we would have to invent one immediately... the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly serves as an engine for promoting democratic development in Europe.”

Of course that’s absolutely right. If you look up their website, you’ll find that the Parliamentary Assembly is always really, really busy talking about all sorts of stuff. When it’s not engaged in vital discussions, it’s developing mechanisms (usually mechanisms to enable further discussion of different stuff). And when it can take a breath, it supports, contributes to and addresses no end of other issues of endless concern.

If the overall assembly is really, really important, what can we possibly say about the Committee for Economic Affairs, Science, Technology and the Environment, which is a sort of sub-committee of the assembly (but possibly even more crucial and vital than the assembly itself)?

Whereas the assembly does an enormous amount of discussing and supporting, the committee (it’s known as the Second General Committee) does a lot of absolutely indispensable examining and exploring.

In fact it spends all its time examining economic and environmental security threats, as well as exploring opportunities for co-operation within these and related fields.

Could anything matter more? Ireland needs to be there. We’re probably a bit of an economic threat ourselves at this stage, and mother of God do we need all the co-operation we can get. And a bit of security in our time of trouble wouldn’t go amiss either. There is a problem, though. Although it’s really, really imperative that we be there, that involves sacrifice. Travel, specifically, and an awful amount of talking. There are dinners that you have to go to. Again, I’m indebted to the website for telling me the work of the OSCE spans a geographical area, as they put it, from Vancouver to Vladivostok.

Now that’s a terrible amount of travel. Anyone we sent on our behalf would be away from home for long periods at a stretch and would have to be able to handle all the things that can happen in VIP lounges in foreign airports. Not to mention the time differences, the rich food, the endless receptions, the little pyramids of Ferrero Rocher at the ambassadors’ dinner parties. And the expenses.

Of course, we’d have to pay the expenses. But it would be worth it. After all, what could be more important than the Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe for Economic Affairs, Science, Technology and the Environment? Even the length of its title tells you how really, really important it is.

But the really, really important news is that we’re there. We’re covered. Ireland has its team at the Parliamentary Assembly, a little rotating group of dedicated public representatives. And that team has its leader. The Head of the Irish Delegation. Numero Uno. The Boss.

Please accept our thanks and congratulations, Senator Ivor Calley. I don’t know whether Senator Ivor (what a ring that name must have in foreign climes) has covered every mile from Vancouver to Vladivostok.

Actually, if you travel one way, there is basically 4,000 miles of water between the two cities, so I’m guessing most of the delegates to the Parliamentary Assembly must go in the other direction. Senator Ivor’s own website has no more than a passing mention of his distinguished role in the assembly (the modesty of the man), so it’s difficult to assess the full extent of his contribution, legendary though it must be.

We do know that as Head of the Irish Delegation (a really, really important job) he was elected to no less a position than Vice-Chair of the Second Committee (I’d be exhausted writing out its full name again). That happened in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, back in 2009, where he also presented a resolution on “the financial consequences of the world’s financial crisis” to a hushed and expectant gathering. They were, apparently, amazed at Senator Ivor’s insight that a financial crisis had financial consequences.

Ivor – from Vladivostok to Vancouver, and Vice-Chair in Vilnius. It has been a triumphant, though no doubt tiring and expensive, passage. It’s no wonder, given all that alliteration, that Senator Ivor has been giving us all the V-sign where his expenses are concerned.

We might have interpreted it as contempt for us, the little people. But actually, Senator Ivor is so busy saving the world that small matters like expenses hardly register in his really, really important schedule. After all, if your final destination is Vladivostok (around 5,500 miles) or even Vancouver (1,000 miles less), does it really matter that much if you’re flying out from Dublin airport or Cork airport?

LOOK, it’s time to get some perspective on this. A person with a disability who depends on the disability allowance is paid €196 a week, provided he or she passes the means test and of course the medical exam. We have to be sure they really do have a disability – you’d be amazed at how much temptation there is to cheat when the allowance is worth a whole €10,192 a year.

If you don’t have a disability, but your husband dies, you could be entitled to a non-contributory widow’s pension. That adds up to exactly the same annual amount provided, naturally, that you can prove to us you really are a widow, that you’re not living with anyone else and that you pass the pretty stringent means test. We can’t have people freeloading on the state just because they’ve been left with nothing after the death of a husband, after all. We’ve got to be tough about these things – it’s taxpayers’ money, you know.

So. We paid Senator Ivor in expenses exactly what it takes to keep four widows, and four people with a disability, for a year. It’s clear now, isn’t it, that it was the jet lag, and the exhaustion from all that discussing and considering and examining about the financial consequences of the financial crisis that got him a bit confused about where he lives.

But those eight people, living in subsistence, ought to realise there was one reason above all why it was really, really important to pay all that extra money to Senator Ivor. We paid it because he’s worth it.