With dodgy claims causing outrage, flaunting frugality is the new Gucci bag, writes KATE HOLMQUIST
THE NEW PURITANS may not be wearing pointy hats, but the razor-sharp points of their red pencils are slashing through expenses budgets like hot swords through virgin snow. There’s the air of an old-fashioned witch-hunt going on as those Freedom of Information requests are processed in the public sphere, while in the private sector stakes have been driven through those hearty steak dinners.
This week we learned of €348,321 in unvouched entertainment and foreign-travel expenses going from the HSE Skill programme into a Siptu-linked account, and that the former Fianna Fáil senator Don Lydon claimed €146,059 in travel and subsistence from 2004 to 2007 after changing his residence from Dublin to Donegal. Our recession summer was dominated by Ivor Callely, formerly of Fianna Fáil, who relocated from Dublin to west Cork at a cost of €80,000 to the taxpayer.
We’re a bit late to the wake for expense accounts. In 2008 expenses began to be examined zealously across Europe, and Deutsche Bank informed its senior executives that brothel visits could not be reimbursed.
Our own expenses scandals seem almost innocent by comparison, though of course they’re a serious matter. They’ve forced us to question our notions of entitlement to high living – and even whether one should be seen at work with takeaway latte in hand. The mood of austerity has become so pervasive that one employee in the private sector, who used to have a healthy expense account, confided this week: “I’ve practically stopped claiming expenses, even though I’m entitled to them. In this climate it looks shabby.”
“Companies cannot be seen to be spending lavishly because they will be slated by the media,” says John Greaney of the Event Company, whose business is down to a third of its 2007 peak. Greaney can recall the day the bookings stopped for everything from €500 business meetings to €100,000 theme nights: January 2nd, 2008.
The hotel industry has fought back, so a hotel that charged €70,000 for a business event in 2007 is now offering the same package for €45,000. “It’s never been a better time to throw a party,” Greaney says wistfully.
The pendulum has swung from helicopters on the lawn, champagne breakfasts and corporate hotel weekends masquerading as team-building to an austerity that in the past two years has brought the hospitality sector to its knees.
“You can’t pretend you’re on business and not be on business,” says Paul Gallagher, president of the Irish Hotels Federation and general manager of Buswells Hotel, across from Leinster House. “We are in a changed environment, and we have to behave in a responsible manner. Work travel has to be for a real reason.”
The head of a top PR company says that “brash flash is no longer in vogue. There’s a sensitivity thing going on”. Someone who runs a company that has imposed austerity measures can’t be seen to be living the high life. There’s even a reverse snobbery. “Housewives in high-end Mercs and BMWs are going to Lidl for the value,” the PR man says. But he’s convinced that for a certain segment of the population it’s all for show. “The money is most assuredly there. Ireland is on pause.” Flaunting frugality is the new Gucci bag. “Bankers aren’t lunching out any more. We haven’t seen anyone from Anglo-Irish,” says a hostess at Peploe’s wine bar in Dublin, which at one stage might have been regarded as the Anglo-Irish canteen.
Stephane Robin of Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud says “people are not buying meals on business accounts”, a change he sees as permanent. Guilbaud’s has therefore stopped doing business dinners in favour of two-Michelin-star “family” dining for regulars.
If any restaurant seemed to embody the extravagant business lunch before the crash, it was Shanahan’s on the Green, where today the three-course early-bird special for €45 is attracting businesspeople who would once have paid €45 for the steak alone. It seems you can have your steak and eat it, as long as you’re not seen to pay too much for it.
