The O’Donoghue Files: and the press follows on…

This is the front page of the Irish Daily Mail yesterday. It’s looks to be a good story (though personally I would like to see more homework on the value of the expenses than to be ‘shocked’ by big figure headlines). Its the travelling expenses of the Dail’s Ceann Comhairle (when he was the Culture and Sport Minister) John O’Donoghue. But you may have read about the story on Gavin’s blog a couple of days ago. The same story appears in today’s Irish Times. Yet the figures are all over the place. Irish Mail says €17,000. The Irish Times says over €21,000 (though they encompass a longer period than Gav’s receipts), which suggests they may all have different source material on this. But Gav (who along with John Handelaar built the excellent KildareStreet.com) is making the source material freely available in a relatively systematic manner…

As I have said before, there is more to come… Some of it, sadly, may confirm people’s worse prejudices about the Irish political classes…

Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty