The Corkonian July 2010

Editor’s Note

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Ivor the terrible invades cork with his scandalising expenses

In all my years in public life, I have enjoyed enormous support from neighbours and friends in my area,” says Ivor Callely on the homepage (he’s only got the one!) of his website. Mind you, with as many neighbours around the country as he has, who needs friends? Especially when you can claim travel expenses from your “residence”

in West Cork, past your “home” in Clontarf all the way to your “constituency offi ce” in Dublin North Central. Why Ivor still has a constituency offi ce despite not being elected as a TD – therefore not having a constituency to serve – is a whole other story of course.

When Ivor Callely joined the Seanad in 2007 he put down his West Cork holiday home in Kilcrohane, Bantry, as his primary residence. He then claimed €81,000 in travel expenses for 2007 and 2008. A freedom of information request which brought these facts into the public sphere led to the rather obvious question, what is Ivor doing living in – and claiming such excessive expenses from – West Cork if he’s supposed to be serving as a member of the Seanad in Dublin? Senator Callely holds clinics every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8:30am to 10:30am at his constituency offi ce: 191 Howth Road, Killester Village (next door to Bank of Ireland - above Wan's Chinese), while his Leinster House offi ce is open daily from 10am - 5pm. It’s a long way from Wan’s Chinese to Bantry… roughly 170km according to Google Maps. Are we supposed to believe that he has been commuting 170km a day from his primary residence all the way to Dublin to attend the Seanad and his constituency offi ce? Ivor must be rising with the birds if he’s due to be at his clinics at 8.30am. More likely, he’s off living with them.

He has backtracked of course, saying he divided his time between his homes, but if he was, why does he have over €80,000 in expenses if he wasn’t always commuting from Cork? Senators are entitled to €126 for every day they sign in at Dáil Eireann. If you break down Senator Callely’s expenses it works out at €110 euro a day on average throughout 2007 and 2008, which certainly sounds like a daily commute to and from Cork. Of course the Seanad doesn’t even sit every day of the year, so who knows how he’s managed to claim so much. Take a closer look at his website and you’ll notice the line in his profi le, “He [Senator Callely] was educated and continues to live in Dublin North Central.” Well… not according to the expenses he’s claiming.

All of this is adding to the general malaise which is affecting the image of politics. People often wonder why young people aren’t interested in politics, or why people tend to be so cynical towards the profession. Well, this is one of the reasons why. Take a look across the water to England and they’ve had their own expenses scandals with politicians found engaging in the practice of “fl ipping” houses (claiming expenses from their second home) or claiming ridiculous expenses on their homes such as duck ponds for their garden. It is quite obvious to anyone with half a brain that you don’t need a duck pond to help run your constituency. These people know what they’re doing is wrong, but they do it anyway. Ivor Callely knew that claiming expenses from a home 170km away from the Seanad was wrong.

Yet he did it anyway. Ivor has since put his home up for sale with Clonakilty-based auctioneer Henry O’Leary, thinking it was probably the one right thing to do now that his holiday-home cover had been blown. The bad news for Ivor: still no offers.

Michael Mulcahy

Editor

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