Councillors’ St Patrick’s Day trip

It was with annoyance but not surprise, that I read on your paper recently about a delegation of Cork County Council representatives, including two of our own local county council representatives, going on an all-expenses paid trip, courtesy of the rate payers and tax payers of County Cork to the United States for St Patrick’s Day celebrations. I know it was advertised that this was to promote business and tourism in County Cork in the United States, but would one or two of the 36 Government ministers who were already travelling abroad on St Patrick’s Day (also as well completely funded by the ratepayers and taxpayers of Ireland), not have been sufficiently able to carry out this task?

County councillors are supposed to deal with local issues, and be there for and take care of the problems arising for citizens in their local communities! In my opinion, for our county councillors to be off gallivanting on lavish, all expenses paid trips around the world, courtesy of the hard hit rate and taxpayer, is an abuse of their position and an abuse of hard earned taxpayer’s money.

According to the figures on your paper this trip by our local councillors has cost us, the ratepayer and taxpayer, a total of €33,442 for just flights and accommodation alone. God only

knows what was spent on this trip on wining and dining, but we can get an idea by looking at the figures from last year’s all-expenses paid trip by Cork County Councillors to the United States.

Last year, according to a FOI request to Cork County Council, $9,500 was spent on accommodation in the luxurious Hilton Hotel in Chicago. $1,564 was spent on a parade day brunch at the Emerald Loop Bar and Grill. $1,100 was spent at the upmarket Cage Restaurant, including 3 bottles of $64 white wine, a $75 red wine and two $28 cocktails. These are just a few examples of many restaurants and bars which were visited during this trip, costing us the taxpayer over $8,500 in food and drink alone for our local county councillors. Transportation costs for the trip including limo hire came to $3,600. In total, the St Patrick’s Day trip last year taken by Cork County Councillors cost us, the taxpayer, just shy of €50,000.

To put this in perspective, our neighbours, Kerry County Council, sent one elected representative and one official to the United States last year costing €7,000 approximately and many county councils sent no representatives abroad at all.

I would not be surprised if this year’s trip exceeds last year and surpasses the €50,000 mark, bringing to €100,000 approximately spent by our local county councillors on St Patrick’s Day trips abroad in the space of 12 months. This at the same time when thousands of Cork taxpayers

are struggling to afford to keep the roof over their family’s head.

To say many of our elected representatives have lost touch with reality and with what is happening on the ground at this moment in time is a complete understatement. It is time now to shake up the entire political system in this country and install Irish citizens who are in touch with the realities of what is happening on the ground, who do not have a sense of self entitlement and who will respect the hard earned taxpayers’ money entrusted to them by the Irish people.

Yours sincerely, Peter O’Donoghue, Bartlemy.