If the public can see how allowances are spent, it would restore confidence in politics, writes NOEL WHELAN
FOR DECADES, politicians were underpaid for the level of work they did and inadequately compensated for the cost of running constituency operations. From the mid-1990s, however, their pay rates were dramatically increased and more significantly they were provided with a range of new or improved allowances.
These increased allowances funded and encouraged the increasingly competitive and personalised nature of political organisation and campaigning. In some instances, the increased funding was used for personal enrichment. More generally it created an unhealthy culture of entitlement among our politicians.
This time last year much media attention focused on the expenses controversy that ultimately led to John O’Donoghue’s resignation as ceann comhairle. At the time, I made the point that while the expenditure incurred by or on behalf of O’Donoghue appeared extravagant, it was naive to think his was an isolated situation. I argued that if the same level of detail of all politicians’ expenses was available to the public, they would be similarly scandalised.
The Westminster experience had shown that controversy about politicians’ expenses could destroy confidence in politics and it was clear that if Irish politicians did not overhaul the expenses system these controversies would continue to rage.
After a tortuous process, the Oireachtas Commission finally agreed last March to a Department of Finance proposal to overhaul the expenses system.
The complex web of grants to TDs and Senators was replaced with a single allowance to cover attendance, travel, accommodation and constituency office costs. Allowances were cut significantly across the board and the total grant paid monthly to each Oireachtas member is published on the Oireachtas website. However, our parliamentarians still have a legacy problem because of the vagueness and extravagance of the previous system.
The Westminster expenses controversy was so potent because the Daily Telegraph got its hands on a disk containing full details of MPs’ expenses claims for 10 years. Luckily for our politicians, no such single disk exists. The limited nature of Irish investigative journalism, coupled with the cost and restrictions of Freedom of Information legislation, mean the historic expenses claims of only a few politicians have received attention. More often than not journalists have decided, or been encouraged, to focus on a particular politician because they had reason to believe there might be a story there. One could understand for example why, given his involvement in previous controversies, journalists began to focus on Ivor Callely.
Reports this week about John Gormley’s expenses claim prior to becoming a Minister emerged not because of journalistic investigation but apparently because a constituent went to the trouble of obtaining the relevant documents through Freedom of Information. This constituent wrote to the Oireachtas asking it to investigate his queries about the claims, but his allegations were dismissed and/or referred to the Department of Finance.
When packaged as a claim over 10 years, the scale of Gormley’s expenses at €200,000 will outrage. Gormley is however entitled to feel aggrieved at being singled out for attention, although his expenses over the period are considerably less than most other TDs.
Curiously, we have been told nothing of the constituent’s motivation. If the interest was purely transparency, he would have sought the details of other TDs in the constituency. Singling out Gormley suggests a political motivation. If embarrassing the Minister was his aim, then by getting his unfounded complaints published in a national newspaper he has succeeded.
There is nothing in the detail of Gormley’s expenses published in The Irish Times on Thursday to suggest anything inappropriate in the manner or extent of his claims – but the detail does show how inappropriate that system was. An average figure of €14,000 a year for a daily allowance looks peculiar for a TD who lived so close to Leinster House and made a point of cycling to work. However, it is not a travel allowance but an allowance paid, even to Dublin TDs, for attending. The suggestion that some aspect of Gormley’s constituency operation was bilocated with party headquarters and that he claimed for being in Leinster House on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve make for interesting copy, but can be easily explained.
The problems for Gormley and any politician dealing with such stories, however, is that if you are explaining, you are losing. The allegation of inappropriate expenses claims, once made, hangs in the air, even when unjustified.
Recent events show that the fullest transparency in expenses is in the interest not only of public confidence in politics generally but also individual politicians.
At the end of last year, Fine Gael frontbencher Leo Varadkar published an annual account of his constituency operation for 2009 on his website. It showed that under the old system, he received, in addition to his Dáil salary and a secretary paid for by the exchequer, total allowance payments of €34,009.35. In the same period, he spent €33,630.52 on constituency-related activity and some political engagements around the country. It was an interesting exercise in transparency. The expenditure side of the account he published balanced the focus on the allowances TDs received and it illustrated how expensive a modern politician’s operation is, even in a non-election year. All TDs and Senators should adopt Varadkar’s transparent habit.