A Dubliner writes:
There’s only 6 days left before planning permission elapses for Dart Underground, the only feasible project capable of transforming the Capital. The Minister looks near certain to blow the money on an inadequate tram service to [near] the airport. What kind of form does one need to fill in to arrange for interested users of the City to descend on the Dáil after work on Monday? 5:00-6:30pm should make the news and the point…
Anyone?/FIGHT!
Ken Foxe, for the RTÉ Investigations Unit, has created a database of ministerial pay and expenses from March 2011 until the end of December 2014.
It follows a database that Mr Foxe created in January which outlined TDs and Senators’ pay, allowances and expenses from March 2011 until the end of July 2014.
In his latest investigation, Mr Foxe found that, as a whole, Government ministers have received approximately €27million in pay and expenses since the Fine Gael/Labour coalition was formed in 2011, while the average amount paid to each minister during the period was €631,000.
He also found:
· Almost €1.6 million was paid in mileage on an unvouched basis.
· The mileage bill rose each year since 2011 to €473,000 in 2014.
· An Taoiseach Enda Kenny was paid more than €780,000 in salary, expenses and other costs during the period, and is top of the list.
· Nine other senior politicians were paid or reimbursed in excess of €700,000 (at least €186,666 annually) between the election and the end of 2014. They are in descending order: Simon Coveney, Jimmy Deenihan, Leo Varadkar, Phil Hogan, James Reilly, Michael Noonan, Brendan Howlin, Joan Burton and Eamon Gilmore.
· Costs for a further 16 senior politicians exceeded €600,000 (a minimum €160,000 annually).
· At least one government minister chose not to take part of their salary and this is reflected in the database. Minister Joan Burton did not take the allowance she is entitled to as Tánaiste, which would be approximately €15,000 annually.
· €165,608 paid for ministerial mobiles and broadband while an additional €75,601 was paid for landlines at home or in constituency offices.
View the database here
Ministers paid more than €27 million in pay and expenses (RTE)
Previously: On Your Dime
Thanks Laura Fitzgerald
Stephen Donnelly TD, Niall O’Tuathail, Róisín Shortall TD, Sarah Jane Hennelly, James Heffernan, Catherine Murphy TD, Gary Gannon and Anne-Marie McNally, of the Social Democrats
Via the soc dems:
The Social Democrats are hosting a policy event at the Hilton Hotel, Charlemount Place, Dublin 2 tonight, during which those attending will be organised into roundtable discussions on six policy areas – Political Reform and Open Government; The Future of Primary Education; Towards a Sustainable Housing Model; Supporting Indigenous Industry; Budget 2016- Investing for the Future; Building a Community-Based Health Service.
The event will begin with a welcome address from Catherine Murphy TD, followed by a keynote address from Fintan O’Toole. The event, which had places for a maximum of 180 people, is now oversubscribed with a waiting list system now in operation. Those who wish to attend can contact the party and if someone decides that they can’t attend, their place will be given to the next person on the waiting list.
Registration begins at 6.30pm with the event itself commencing at 7pm.
UPDATE: Event now closed. Elitists!
An experimental animation by Stephen Ong. To wit:
Plotting the path of light from the burning embers of a camp fire to the white glow of the smartphone.
Most illuminating.
A rather good short film by editors Andy Schneider and Jonathan Britnell composed entirely of phone call scenes from other movies.
This lunchtime.
Geoff Hamilton writes:
Queuing madness outside the In ‘n’ Out [Burger] pop-up at Bread and Bones [Millenium Walkway, Dublin 1] this lunchtime. All food sold out as of 12.45….
Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, the Irish director’s adaption of Emma Donoghue’s award-winning novel and his follow up to Frank (2014), received three standing ovations at its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this week, and early reviews are of the “raving” variety.
Delboy posted the teaser trailer in July but this is the full one featuring ‘Acadamy Award-Calibre’ (New York Post) performances by Brie Larson And Jacob Tremblay.
Room is released in Ireland on January 29.
Previously: Broadsheet Trailer Park: Room
They’re breaking up the gang.
Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern spoke to Pat Kenny on Newstalk earlier after Fianna Fáil’s general secretary directed that the party’s General Election candidates in the Dublin South Central and Dublin Central constituencies must be women – in order to satisfy new gender quota rules which state 30 per cent of a party’s candidates must be female.
Mr Ahern told Newstalk:
“I don’t agree with it, Pat. If you want my honest opinion, I think it’s zany but I think whether it’s a man or a woman, whoever comes through the position [deserves the nomination]. I have served at cabinet table with very formidable ladies like Mary O’Rourke, Mary Harney and Mary Coughlan, who came through the ranks.”
“The idea, like in my old constituency, the ruling is that they’re not allowed not nominate [a male] so there’s no point in a man even contesting the convention because even if he won it, he wouldn’t get through. And, you know, imagine if it was the other way around, if it was only a male person being allowed through? I bet you your programme this morning would be exclusively be on that issue, but some genius thought it up and then, you know, there goes it.”
“I think it’s mad. I think the idea that a person who works their way through the system, works their way through their branch or Cuman or organisation, gets themselves popular with the public, with the local organisations, then comes to the convention of the party and (the party is) saying ‘yes you have done a very good job in the last ten years, breaking your neck in your community, breaking it through with the organisation, but you happen to be the wrong gender, so go away’.”
Listen back in full here
RollingNews.ie
