SEANAD:SEÁN BARRETT (Ind) called on Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin to explain how the travel and subsistence budgets in some Government departments were growing at multiples of any rate of inflation and how this growth could be constrained in 2013.

It seemed a war chest had been built up through these budgets at the expense of the economy.

David Norris (Ind) said it was astonishing that civil servants should increase their allowances at such an exponential rate. On a related issue, he deplored the attacks on Deputy Joe Higgins by a section of the media. In terms of how the Oireachtas expenses regime worked, it seemed extraordinary that there should be pressure on politicians to become more local and not to travel outside their little parishes, as Mr Higgins had done without indulging in luxury. “The same people apparently would have confined Daniel O’Connell to Kerry, if he was still alive and campaigning for Catholic emancipation. I have to say it’s getting increasingly like working in some kind of downgraded factory in this joint.”

Deputy Seanad leader Ivana Bacik (Lab) said she had raised with the Minister for Communications the inability of the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland to accept complaints about Youth Defence’s “appalling” anti-abortion billboard campaign. She was not advocating censorship, but any user of commercial advertising should be subject to the same monitoring regime.