Kevin Doyle, political reporter for the Evening Herald was on Lunchtime today talking about expenses run up by 25 civil service work directly with Taoiseach Brian Cowen.
Over the past two years these people ran up credit card bills of €52,000 in top class restaurants and pubs.
One card holder ran up a bill of over €3,000 in just one month.
On the 20th December 2007 Mary Harney hosted a dinner for invited guests that cost €1,800.
On the same night civil servants spent €4,000 in different restaurants and bars using six different credit cards.
In response the relevant department said they did not pay for Christmas parties and, I assume, they expect us to believe that waffle.
The fact that this arrogant and greedy waste of our money occurred just recently demonstrates that these people have no intention of getting off the gravy train – until they’re pushed.
Did Mary Hearney actually host a dinner, or did she just eat that amount of food and passed if off as if she had guests?
Anyway, the entire system is absolutely corrupt. If it’s not politicians blaming civil servants for their indisgressions, it’s the civil servants themselves abusing the system. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a solution. At least not one we can yet see. This country is in a great deal of trouble.