Craughwell’s bank fees dwarf Ó Céidigh’s frugal meetings
Bradley Bytes – A Political Column with Dara Bradley
It’s not clear from Senator Gerard Craughwell’s statement of expenditure of Parliamentary Activities Allowance what bank the Salthill-native uses, but I’d humbly suggest he should consider switching.
In his list of expenditure of the allowance paid to Independent TDs and Senators - lodged with SIPO (Standards in Public Office) - Ger Craughwell said his bank fees in 2018 amounted to €75.39.
Not extortionate, but when the taxpayer is footing the bill, maybe it’s best to shop around.
Craughwell’s bank fees are ten times what another Galway senator, Alice Mary Higgins paid for bank fees (€7.50) last year; while Pádraig Ó Céidigh said he paid just €9.09 for “banking charges”.
Alice Mary, meanwhile, included €18.99 on an NUIG Higher Education Diversity Event in her expenditure on policy formulation. A snip.
And Ó Céidigh, the Connemara businessman, listed a whole load of ‘entertainment’ expenses for which he paid over €3,228. That included an end-of-year dinner with 12 people and himself – the last supper of 2018 – which cost €85.25.
He listed having spent €2.80 during a “meeting with researcher”, one of three items of expenditure to the value of €2.80 listed in his entertainment expenses. It’s a case of looking after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves because, apparently, according to his SIPO returns, there were two people at that meeting – presumably himself and a researcher. But for just €2.80, did they share a cappuccino? Oh, the frugality.
Meanwhile, in his SIPO returns, Billy Lawless, has listed 19 different items of expenditure on entertainment, including €160.70 on “Constituents Lunch”, which was attended by six people.
This is probably a mislabelling because senators don’t have constituents or represent geographical constituencies in the way that TDs do.
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