From the Irish Indo
Tuesday October 06 2009
WHAT filthy, grotesque, unprecedented and bizarre revelations about John O’Donoghue must Irish citizens be subjected to before some appropriate action is taken?
The obscenity of this ongoing news story (and others regarding golden handshakes at FAS) is only surpassed by the total absence of leadership from the Government. Labour are suggesting the Ceann Comhairle may consider paying back some of his expenses, while Fine Gael ”think that the Ceann Comhairle might like to consider his position”. The Greens think there should be a total review of Government expenses but this again ignores the current elephant in Leinster House.
Meanwhile, our leader Brian Cowen appears cloaked in a deafening silence of indifference. He dare not speak of the office of Ceann Comhairle for fear of the skies opening above him and a lightning bolt from the heavens removing him from his tower of babble. It’s beginning to look like the Ceann Comhairle is not really from the Kingdom of Kerry but from the Kingdom of Narnia: a magical and special place where all is not what it seems. Leadership is what leaders do. Leaders lead by example. Leaders continually challenge the status quo. Leaders seek not just to fix what is broken but to envision a better future where the same source of the problem cannot re-emerge. Leaders go beyond fire-fighting. Leaders firstly put the fire out.
Then, they investigate its source and then, they creatively consider and implement actions to prevent a similar fire from starting. It’s all common sense but common sense does not appear to be very common in Dail Eireann. We have all the usual Government suggestions rolling in: let’s have a meeting about it or let’s have a review of procedures or let’s ask the Ceann Comhairle to maybe think about considering his position?
We need leadership and we need it bad.
John O’Donoghue should not only be immediately removed from public office, he should be forbidden from ever holding public office again. Then, and only then, can the Government start fixing what’s clearly broken.
Glasnevin, Dublin
Irish Independent
This is appalling stuff why are we even allowing this kind of crap even to go on, John O’Donoghue is dictating to the Dail what is to be done about lavish expenses and will come up with proposals for change! He’s having a laugh!
This demonstrated just how out of touch the entire body of politic in Ireland is out of touch with the reality of ordinary people trying to make it through every day in this depression
The likes of O Donoghue and the rest of the leaches in the Dail, Top civil service & Top Bank oficcials, Doctors, Union Bosses all are living in “The twilight zone”
Where there is no rescission or depression and somebody else pays your bills for you all the time
These entitlements or perks, that have being self awarded, have built up un checked over 70 years, to these select few individuals in the public pay.
This culture is in every facet of oficcialdom in this country
I remember in the 1980 when a change of government came about I was working in a well known Dublin Hotel we were getting some building work done and it so happened that the developer we were using was the same builder a particular government new Minster was using to spouse up there government office the builder told me that they had just finished renovating the same office for the previous Minster a few weeks before and the new Minster wanted to completely change the entire office all over again because XXX did not like the colors ,this was a cost of 85 thousand pounds at that time
So you see it’s nothing new, what we need is for the Finance Minster to come out and cancel all perks and marks every item of expenditure, including all payments above normal wages must now be canceled period!
The wages for the job is the wage for the job and if anybody has a problem with that I will gladly take any one of their jobs for half of their normal standard wage with no extra perks
