Minister of State for Transport Ivor Callely should be "reined in" for his "arrogant" use of public funds for self publicity, the Labour Party demanded today.
Senator Derek McDowell, an election candidate in Mr Callely's Dublin North Central constituency, was commenting after unveiling a publicity campaign highlighting what he says is the transport policy failures of Mr Callely and the Government.
Mr Callely's personal secretary at the Department resigned two weeks ago after refusing a request from the junior minister to attend a function which she said was political in nature. Civil servants above the rank of clerical officer are not allowed attend political functions.
And yesterday it emerged that Mr Callely's constituency secretary had tendered his resignation over what the Irish Timesreports was the junior minister's "style of management".
Mr McDowell said today that Mr Callely's tenure is "rapidly descending into farce." "Hardly a day goes by now without the internal workings of the Department of Transport, and Minister Callely's office in particular, becoming an issue for the national papers," Mr McDowell said.
He also expressed outrage at Mr Callely's appearance in recent newspaper supplements promoting the Christmas traffic management plan for Dublin, "Operation Freeflow".
The use of public funds for promoting politicians is banned and the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) is currently investigating the use of Mr Callely's photograph in a previous advertisement for "Operation Freeflow".
"Despite this investigation, junior minister Callely proceeded with taking over a full page in the Operation Freeflow supplement issued with the Sunday Independentlast weekend."
"The fact that one-third of the page was devoted to a colour picture of the junior minister shows that this was an exercise in vanity and self-publicity at the public's expense," Mr McDowell said.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern defended Mr Callely's previous appearance in adverts in the Dáil but Mr McDowell said: "It's high-time the Taoiseach set standards for his Government and dealing with the arrogance of Ivor Callely is an appropriate place to start.
"It is little wonder that the Government's transport policy is a mess," he added.
