A chara, – Cathal Malone (September 14th) expects TDs to maintain constituency offices, to hold clinics, to travel to and from Leinster House, and to spend part of their week living away from their primary residences.
I expect TDs to demonstrate leadership during these extremely difficult times and to close down their constituency offices before they close down any more hospital beds, I expect clinics to be replaced by national politics, I expect politicians to be issued with free travel passes for our entire public transport system (and I have met plenty of people who live abroad from their primary residence entirely at their own expense). I do not expect politicians to radically reform their own expenses system, hence it needs to be closed down. One hundred and sixty-five TDs charging €6 million in expenses in less than a year is going way beyond milking the system. How do politicians expect us to accept what they will deliver in December’s budget if they themselves are not willing to lead, and follow Labour TD for Dublin South West Eamonn Maloney’s example by claiming no expenses.
Mr Malone seems worried about how TDs would survive on “their (now much-reduced) salaries” of €92,672(minimum) if their expenses system was closed down, I for one, am not. – Is mise,