Transparency is needed with the Presidency
THE attitude to the cost of the Office of President and the weakkneed attitude of the media to addressing the cost of his office tells you a lot about Ireland.
It’s worth reflecting on the fact that, if re-elected, Mr Higgins would have received €1.7million in salary alone over his two terms, excluding allowance and pensions. Really, and for what? Can anyone think of anything that would be worse if he had never held political office or of any issue he led on?
In addition to his current role, he is also in receipt of a senator, TD, minister and lecturer pension, all of which are funded by the taxpayer. He claims he doesn’t receive those pensions while President but he has only deferred them.
He has not forfeited them and when he leaves office, he’ll join the long list of other politicians who quietly back claim the pensions they also deferred for PR reasons while they were in receipt of other lavish income.
This is not about Mr Higgins or another politician or civil servant personally; it’s about the principle of transparency and accountability. But if other states, against whom we ask to be judged as a peer, can cope with transparency why can’t Ireland?
The principle should be that every cent spent by the State, whether it is to provide for education or health care or to cover the cost of the President travelling or the costs of his wife and children, even the electricity bill, should be public information because it is paid for by the public.
Imagine being told in your house to hand over your entire salary and that it’s none of your business how much it costs to run the house? That would be classed as an abusive and toxic relationship that was not worth saving.
The attitude of the civil servants
and politicians who make these decisions to keep information secret and who go to astounding levels to fight those who try to unveil these secrets is incredible in this day and age.
The mind boggles at how much better-off people could be if the same diligence and efficiency was put into fixing problems in housing, health and other areas. It will take a few brave people putting their careers on the line before things will change.
As is usually the case in Ireland for the information to become public it will take one or two brave people to risk their careers and then sooner or later the whole stinking façade falls away and the public is aghast and another chunk of trust in the state dissolves.
If Mr Higgins really had high standards he would immediately volunteer for all the costs of his office to be made public.
Not because he has to but because it’s the right thing to do in 2018 in a country that claims to run its affairs to the highest
standards, even while the evidence in front of us leads us to beg to differ.
All the other candidates for President and Mr Higgins should release their tax returns and confirm in writing that the full costs of their period in office will be open to audit at Public Accounts Committee and in public but then again, the chances of any candidate for Irish political office being able to reach that standard of ethics is practically zero.
DESMOND FITZGERALD,
Canary Wharf, London.
Divisive article
FIONA Looney has shown massive disrespect to those who find themselves on social housing lists, moving from one rented house/ room/apartment to another, and often ending up ‘couch surfing’ with relatives and friends.
She confides in her column (Mail, Wednesday) that whilst, ‘we’re all in favour of social housing, but how many of us, honestly and truly would welcome a new social housing
development in our backyard’? You can rest easy, Fiona, because there’s as much chance of new social housing being built in meaningful and useful numbers, as you apparently growing some empathy genes!
I found this statement divisive,
What do YOU think?
heartless, and very telling. It shows the massive gulf between ‘them and us’, and a contempt on the part of Ms Looney for those for whom social housing is a godsend and a lifeline.
MEG RYBICKI, Castlegal, Co. Leitrim.