Ministers must adjust too
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Thursday November 12 2009
EAMON O CUIV is the latest minister to defend lavish spending on limousines and chauffeurs while on foreign trips. The singular duties of a Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs brought him to Delhi and New York, and he acknowledges that some of the car hire along the way was very expensive and he promises that it will not happen again.
This is in the spirit of new rules hastily introduced following a series of embarrassing revelations about the political elite's travel habits. Government politicians probably do not yet fully comprehend the extent to which their authority and credibility have been diminished in the public perception by extravagances.
Public annoyance at ministers' travel expenses is nothing compared to resentment of enormous salaries, double and triple pensions, ministerial cars for former taoisigh and other excesses more suitable to some oil-rich sheikhdom.
A Gaeltacht Minister's limo trip to the Hotel Taj Mahal is no more bizarre than the existence of a €6m-a-year state car pool, providing Mercs and BMWs for ministers, the President, the Government Chief Whip, the Ceann Comhairle, the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Chief Justice and former taoisigh and presidents, manned by no fewer than 77 garda drivers.
Soon the Taoiseach will have to ask the people to accept extraordinary measures which will affect the quality of their lives.
They will expect to see some tangible evidence that their politicians are themselves ready and willing to accept hefty adjustments in their own comfortable lifestyles.
