Clearly my letter (2nd October) suggesting thirteen ways in which TDs could improve their performance to justify benchmarking fell on deaf ears. Since then, we have learnt that:
- About nine TDs were on holidays or junkets when the Dail resumed on 30th September notwithstanding that the summer recess had lasted four months.
- One TD had a phoney foreign bank account and made a €130,000 settlement to the Revenue but still managed to provide a tax clearance certificate.
- Junior ministers have been claiming travel expenses of up to €160,000 since the Government was formed last year.
- Up to €500,000 has been paid to sitting TDs as partial teacher salaries in addition to their full TD salaries.
To cap it all and to rub salt into the raw wounds of a very disenchanted electorate, the Dail has decided to take a "mid-term break" after sitting for just four weeks.
Surely, the time has arrived for the electorate to call a halt to this self-serving behavior and, in the interests of democracy, to demand "root and branch" change to the Dail and its TDs.