Senator looking to increase mileage all the way to Brussels
THE revelation that Fianna Fail’s Lisa Chambers appears to have been driving the scenic route to Leinster House according to her mileage claims is a real blast from the past – like hearing an old Joe Dolan song on the radio.
God be with the days, folks, when this was the sort of stuff we worried about, truly they were more innocent, gentler times.
Lisa has claimed her tax-free allowance of €27,534 (on top of her €76,329 basic for doing all the really important stuff Irish senators do) despite living a donkey’s roar from other serving politicians who claim less mileage, and at least one who lives further away from Leinster House.
The best bit of it all, in the true spirit of the Soldiers of Destiny, Lisa Chambers can plausibly claim to have stayed totally within the rules.
She can say that all she’s really done is be a bit smarter than her colleagues.
It’s been a great few weeks for the Senator all the same who is hoping to greatly increase her mileage by running to be a Member of the European Parliament in the upcoming elections. As everybody knows, the quickest route, by road, from Castlebar to Brussels is drive to Larne in Co Antrim, hop on the ferry to Scotland, drive south to the port of Immingham on the North Sea coast, ferry to Gothenburg, Sweden, then it’s a quick detour up to the Arctic Circle town of Murmansk (to avoid the traffic) and a mere 3,356km drive southwards through Norway, across the Oresund Bridge to
Denmark and Germany and into Belgium to reach Brussels. Do that trip a couple of times a month and see the milage rack up!
During her run for the Big Job in Europe – Lisa has had to face annoying questions about how she appeared to be on both sides of the recent referendum, which turned out to be the latest example of genius-level work by our current government.
After it all went pear-shaped, Lisa bravely declared that she was on the “right” side all along and had voted “No”.
When it was pointed out that this was out of line with her Party’s declared position, she confidently batted that away by saying she wasn’t involved in all of that “politics” and “campaigning” stuff.
When photographs of her canvassing for a Yes vote then emerged, the bould Lisa bravely explained that she had, kinda, campaigned for Yes, but didn’t really, and secretly changed her mind anyhow and look would ye all stop asking awkward questions?
Truly, Fianna Fail are still raring them and the good folks of Mayo and Connact can now decide on whether or not to increase her milage all the way to Brussels!