Sir, – Though I am loath to defend any member of Sinn Féin, Dublin South-Central – Aengus Ó Snodaigh’s constituency, had an electorate of 80,203 at the last election.
His ink requisitions have been estimated as sufficient to print 3.25 million pages over two years.That’s only slightly over 20 leaflets per member of his electorate per year. There are valid reasons to continue to publicly fund the production of such leaflets; it is in the public interest that TDs communicate with the people of their constituency and inform them of their progress and efforts.
However, may I suggest that the public might be better served if such services were centralised to save costs, and that such leaflets be limited to issues of national scope and importance? There is no general benefit in the publication of a leaflet claiming responsibility for the speedy repair of a pothole. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Is it time to take the ink cartridge out of Irish politics? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Aengus Ó Snodaigh – the TD formerly known as “Prints”. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – According to Deputy Ó Snodaigh, he was printing material for his constituents when he used €50,000 of printer cartridges over two years.
As somebody who lives in Dublin South Central, neither my neighbours nor I saw in our letterboxes any of the three million or so leaflets that he printed on our behalf. Perhaps he could reprint few of them so we can catch up with the goings-on locally. We’d pay again, of course. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Now here’s a strange one for you. I am a constituent of Deputy Ó Snodaigh (though until Wednesday I was quite oblivious of that fact) and on reading of the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of sheets of information sent to constituents in recent years I felt quite slighted because I had not received a single one! However, having spoken to some neighbours I felt somewhat better because not one could recall having received any either; and leaflets with big colour pictures would probably stick in one’s mind.
What an unfortunate man the deputy is, having plundered the public purse and decimated the rainforests: in the end it was all for nowt because his information sheets seem to have been lost in the post. – Yours, etc,