STAND UP: Politicians can and must grasp this nettle. For too long they have feared repercussions. No more can that be accepted. We need a range of censures. One might possibly overlook a declaration of something very small on a form and be reprimanded in a small way, but a conflict of interest should carry a severe penalty.
BROWN ENVELOPES: Dan Boyle argues that the revelations in the recent RTE Investigates programme into corruption at council level are just another nod to a long standing culture that is defensive and unwilling to see obvious realities. The instinct of the traditional political system is to defend its collective honour, rather than admit that corruption exists in any form, needing to be quashed.
Michael Brennan has been following up on the admission by both of Sinn Fein’s Donegal TDs that they’d been using travel expenses towards paying for local workers. It is now up to the Dail committee on members’ interests to investigate the redirection of travel expenses by Mr Doherty and Mr MacLochlainn — although it is likely to require a complaint from a member of the public in order to do this. And the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) has …
The specific legislation concerned is in Section 24 of the Electoral Act of 1997 (which is well worth going through to test the argument below for loopholes). Sitting snugly under Faduda’s story on Martin McGuinness there is another one which details a prima facae case that Senator David Cullinane may be breach of the donation rules. And it looks as though other Sinn Fein members of the Oireachtas may be using a similar rationale for not making a full declaration of …
