Madam, – Were it not for “Miriam Lord’s Week”, (Home News, November 7th), I would have remained ignorant of the fact that Labour’s Michael D Higgins TD slipped and fractured his knee while on a fact-finding mission in South America recently. The presidential hopeful was accompanied by parliamentary colleagues Tom Kitt TD (Fianna Fáil), Pat Breen TD (Fine Gael) and Senator Mark Daly (Fianna Fáil). This Oireachtas delegation had meetings with both community and religious representatives in Colombia.
Last September Fine Gael withdrew pairing arrangements in the Dáil with the Government, which threatened to disrupt a trip to the US by the Tánaiste that was organised by Enterprise Ireland.Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said his party would not tolerate a situation where Ministers were given discretionary powers to travel all over the world.
Do our globetrotting parliamentarians not understand the seriousness of the economic situation at home? Just this week the EU economic commissioner Olli Rehn, not Ollie Hardy, held meetings with Government and Opposition leaders to outline the EU analysis of Ireland’s economic problems and the need to bring spending in line with revenue. Whatever expertise these TDs possess that brought them to Colombia, would they kindly apply it to the situation here in Ireland on behalf of those who elected them? – Yours, etc,