Politics: Ivor Callely - The Fall Guy who cried 'Wolf'? Hardly!
In the earlier news leaks, we were lead to believe that all the prospective shenanigans of Fianna Fáil Senator Ivor Callely were built around the fact that he was a Cork-based T.D. with a constituency in Clontarf, North Dublin. He had been claiming overnight and travel
expenses from his property in west Cork to the tune of €80,000 since he was
appointed to the Seanad in 2007. But his tune kept changing..
Originally an appointee of disgraced former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern (surprise) after the electorate kicked him out in 2007, he tried to win one of the rigged Senate seats instead. After begging Bertie for a dig-out, he became one of the then Taoiseach's 'safety-net' nominees. While sitting in his cushy number as a member of the Seanad (Senate), he had originally claimed he was living in Cork and travelling to his other home in Dublin (and his constituency base). But as it turns out (and according to his website) he was actually living in Dublin while claiming these astronomical expenses.
Like most Irish public representatives, Callely has got a bit of history, of course. It turns out he was going through a 'personal time' after he lost his constituency seat in 2005 and resigned to Cork to rest (so naturally that's why he continued to claim expenses for both locations though he wasn't working in either!) He had to resign his cabinet post in
2005 after it was revealed he’d had his house painted for free. To
reward him for falling on his sword, while others got away with much,
much worse, Bertie Ahern (who got away with much,
much worse), appointed
him to the cash cow that is the Seanad. And here we are.
Did you know in the last 4 years, T.D.s (members of parliament) on average have billed the Irish state/tax-payer €188,000 each in expenses? That's an invoice of €31million total overall. The culture of expenses fiddling is clearly part and parcel of politics, not
just Irish as recent events in the UK have shown. However, there is
never any will to change things properly. T.D.s are still allowed a
certain amount of unvouched expenses and when the system is such that
we’re not sure if we’re being defrauded or not then it’s obvious that
some people will take advantage of that. Until somebody starts examining expenses properly and then prosecutes
those who have defrauded the Irish people nothing is going to change.
The occasional high profile resignation is hardly a deterrent. Does anyone realise, for example, as a member of the Seanad, Callely isn't actually a public representative so why is he claiming these expenses?!
After much tongue tactics with his cross-examiner peers (yawn), Callely has now been suspended for 20 working days with a deduction of one month's salary €5,468 (of his yearly €65,000) and off he trots home to Cork for a nice holiday until Christmas! By the way, aside from him saying if he "is found to be owing monies" he will return it (Like, oops!) he's now claiming his Cork home is not owned by him.. This debacle has merely shown this type of carry-on is really just a symptom of the dysfunction of the entire political system. There clearly needs to be structures in place to berate people who are disingenuous and unaccountable for their actions.
There have been murmurs over the past few weeks that Callely may be the fall guy for all our ill-ease in this country with the property developers, politicians etc who we feel have wronged us and ripped off our republic. He may be, he may be not. But he has proved his dishonesty more than once and let's be honest when you open a can of worms, there's still a worm!