Transparency required - Áras expenses remain a secret

It is almost a decade since former Tory MP Peter Viggers, claimed £1,600 in expenses to pay for a floating duck house at his Hampshire home.

His greed was one of myriad examples of the imaginative use of expenses uncovered in the House of Commons in 2009.

Those revelations ended his political career and led to the 2016 Recall of MPs Act, legislation which may end the DUP’s Ian Paisley’s political career too.

Politicians expenses and pensions are always a fraught subject and almost invariably provoke disproportionate angst — especially if there is even the slightest absence of transparency in the process.

Next month, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee plans to delve into the up-to-now undisclosed state financing of our presidency. The President’s expenses and the cost of running Áras an Uachtaráin remain a mystery.

The office does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act so that avenue to transparency is not available.

This serves no-one well, least of all our President. This silence creates a lacuna where rumour and innuendo can undermine our head of State and by association, the State.

No-one expects our President to use an Airbnb or say, rent and drive a camper van for engagements outside the Pale.

It is reasonable, however, to expect that an annual account of expenses is published if only to allay suspicions.

Especially when an incumbent seeks a second term.