This is probably as daft a political scandal (by someone not called Wiener) as there has been for a while.
It seems that over 3,600 calls were made from a Leinster House phone to a premium phone line at a cost to the taxpayer of €2,600. The premium line was to register votes for a candidate in a 2007 reality television show, Celebrities Go Wild.
The candidate was Michael Healy-Rae, heir to the cap-wearing dynasty’s Dáil seat in their Kerry South caliphate. At the time, his father Jackie was in residence in Leinster House, but Healy-Rae junior has denied any impropriety or knowledge of the phone calls. Awkwardly for him, his father appears to have been busy distributing e-mails around the Oireachtas encouraging people to vote for him.
The Irish Times states:
However, Michael Healy-Rae said his father was an excellent politician who would not have had time to vote on the outcome of a reality TV show.
“He was involved in a very tight voting arrangement at the time,” he said.
Hmm. You might want to rephrase that Michael…
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