IN THE judgment of his Seanad Éireann peers, Ivor Callely has failed to provide a convincing explanation for travel and overnight expenses that he has claimed as a Senator. Since 2007, when taoiseach, Bertie Ahern nominated him to the Seanad, he has received over €80,000 in expenses in disputed circumstances.
The Seanad Members’ Interests Committee has now found the Senator “intentionally” misrepresented his normal place of residence to boost his allowances. It considered he normally resided in his Clontarf home and not, as he had claimed, in a house in Co Cork, some 370km from Leinster House. On the evidence before it, the committee could not have decided otherwise.
Mr Callely describes his Clontarf residence as his family home, which he also uses for correspondence purposes. He continues to live and work in the constituency -Dublin North Central – which he once represented as a TD. And there he maintains a constituency office, where – according to his website – the Senator is available three days a week. Throughout this controversy the Senator has insisted that he complied fully with regulations on members’ expenses. However, he has singularly failed to produce the detailed evidence necessary to support the claim of normal residency status for his Cork home.
Indeed, his flippant treatment of some questions from members of the Seanad committee hardly helped his own case. When asked to clarify where he now lived, he answered with a cryptic comment: “ Yesterday’s history, tomorrow’s a mystery.”
In June, Mr Callely resigned the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party whip confident the members’ interest committee would clear his name. That has not happened. And on Wednesday the Seanad, without dissent, voted unanimously to suspend him without pay for 20 sitting days. He has “strenously” rejected the committee’s findings. And whether he will honour a commitment that he gave the committee last month to “reimburse” or “repay” any overpayment of allowances remains unclear. The Senator will now consider his options. But these are limited.
If he fails to meet the terms set by the committee to “regularise and make good his allowance affairs”, he should consider his future as a Senator. He was nominated (but not elected) to a position of public trust. A refusal by Mr Callely to accept the judgment of his peers would make his already weak position, untenable.
In a democracy, legislators to some degree serve as role models. And in times of economic difficulty, the leadership qualities that politicans show and the example they set, assume an extra public significance. Legislators are expected to uphold – in letter and spirit – the rules they write for themselves; not least those regulating their expenses for which the taxpayer pays. This embarrassing episode has been bad for politics and bad for the Seanad and its standing with the public. One redeeming aspect of this affair, however, has been the Seanad committee’s determination to deal with the matter quickly and decisively.