AS CEANN Comhairle John O'Donoghue was toppled from his perch at the helm of Leinster House, a frantic race began to see if another senior politician could be similarly ensnared.
The environment minister and Green Party leader John Gormley was being eminently pragmatic when he predicted that this new-found obsession with expenses would probably prove embarrassing for every single government minister.
Whether anybody could out-O'Donoghue O'Donoghue – that was now the real question.
The former ceann comhairle had been in a prime position for foreign travel, serving at the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism but there were whispers about other government ministers – that their arrangements had been similarly profligate.
It was a nervous time around the cabinet table and the offices of every department found themselves under siege, with Freedom of Information requests arriving literally by the day seeking in painstaking detail every single expense claim involving every single minister, sometimes going back a decade.
The process had already begun in the Sunday Tribune and it was only when John O'Donoghue finally fell on his sword that this information began to flow back.
It was almost as if a wait-and-see approach had been taken, as if government departments were biding their time to see how the ceann comhairle controversy would play out, before they would risk throwing their minister into that heady mix of public anger and media scavenging. They all seemed to be bracing themselves, just anticipating the moment when the other shoe would drop.
With O'Donoghue gone, however, the floodgates were allowed to open, a great sluice of information pouring forth and pored over. There was an overload of documents, all detailing specific trips, specific years, specific ministers, almost too much for anybody to take in during the weeks that followed.
Nobody escaped, not present-day officeholders, not former taoisigh, not any class of minister, not even the Green Party, that supposed paragon of virtuous politics.
The phones of newspaper offices whirred with suggestions of profligacy while anonymous letters alleging impropriety arrived. Cryptic allusions to the famed largesse of certain politicians appeared every hour on the boards of internet discussion groups. Most of this information – as so often tends to be the case – was vague and in some cases, simply untrue.
As always, the people who actually knew where the skeletons were buried, those civil servants with access to these files, kept that compulsive code of discretion so rigorously adhered to by the Irish public service. Most of what did appear on the radar of the media came as these things always do: from educated guesswork and from the party enemies of politicians.
It was perhaps not a surprise that the Minister for Health Mary Harney was one of the first to find herself under the microscope. Harney already had a reputation for being less than careful with taxpayers' money. Much of it stemmed from an incident in December 2001 when the then-Tánaiste and her then-fiancé Brian Geoghegan had flown to Sligo on an Air Corps plane for the opening of a friend's off-licence.
Harney had arrived in Sligo Airport where she was met by her own chauffeur-driven state Mercedes, which had already been dispatched from Dublin to meet her. From there, she was taken to nearby Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, where she opened the Next Door off-licence, owned by an old friend. A few hours later, the minister and Geoghegan headed back to Dublin on board the same plane, a patrol vessel that was normally used to monitor illegal fishing off the coast of Ireland.
The cost of the trip had not been significant, probably no more than €1,500 but what outrage there was did not revolve around money. It was, as so regularly seems to be the case, these gestures of wastefulness, no matter how small, that carried most resonance with the public.
The Tánaiste already held that reputation when another controversy over expenses at the state training agency Fás had erupted in 2008. And when details of a $410 bill for beauty treatments at a spa in Florida became public, Harney – for a brief period at least – seemed like she too might become a casualty of the implosion of Fás.
When Harney found herself at the centre of a new expenses media spotlight, she probably only had herself to blame. It was peculiar in a way, however, because the mumblings surrounding Harney's supposed profligacy had been in the wind for years. Now in hindsight, it simply seemed as if nobody had ever actually gone to the trouble of fully investigating it.
By the time the details did finally become public, Harney's new employers at the Department of Health had been delaying and obfuscating over the release of information for weeks, despite a legal threat from at least one national newspaper.
Eventually, a week after John O'Donoghue stepped down, they came partially clean, releasing what was a heavily edited response to a Freedom of Information request that the Sunday Tribune had submitted at least three months previously. The costs involved were extensive: €65,000 in hotels, limousine hire and accommodation in the space of just three years on a succession of worldwide trips. There was also a colossal government jet bill, running to at least €600,000.
Some of the details were potentially damaging, and certainly, at least in certain aspects, on a par with those of John O'Donoghue. There had been 15 trips in all between 2006 and 2008: four to the United States and Canada, one to Bahrain and South Africa, and the remaining trips around Europe for St Patrick's Day and EU events. On 12 of those trips, either the government's €7,100-an-hour Gulfstream IV jet or the €2,100-an-hour Learjet were put to use to ensure the Tánaiste travelled in sufficient style.
In February 2006, Harney had travelled to Vancouver and Toronto on board the government jet at a cost of more than €140,000. The trip was for the purposes of an "analysis of cancer-control governance models" and in fairness to the health minister, she had a fairly hectic schedule. Harney and her husband had stayed in the Four Seasons Hotel in Vancouver where their room had been CA$1,650 with small claims for laundry by Harney and to get a suit pressed for Brian Geoghegan.
In May of that year, Harney and Geoghegan again jetted off to America on the Gulfstream IV, where car hire this time came to a massive €14,351.
In October, the couple was off across the Atlantic again, this time to Chicago to visit a children's memorial hospital there. Harney and her husband stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago where they ran up a bill of $1,137 over two days, including $465-a-night on a room and more than $200 for what must have been a sumptuous breakfast. Harney also charged a $1,300 meal at the upmarket Spiaggia restaurant to the taxpayer on that trip after the departmental credit card was rejected at a four-star restaurant in the Windy City.
For St Patrick's Day, the Tánaiste and her husband had represented Ireland abroad every year although their intended destinations were not always too far from home. In 2008, they travelled to Prague by government jet and hired cars costing €1,136. Accommodation costs on the trip were €921, restaurant bills €263 and subsistence paid out came to €618.
In 2007, Harney, her husband and three advisers went by government jet to Stockholm in Sweden for St Patrick's Day and stayed for five days. The minister stayed the first three nights of her visit in Stockholm at the Grand Hotel, where the room rate for the night had been around €770 with €50 for breakfast each morning. A late check-out for Harney had also been arranged on the day of departure, and the taxpayer was forced to pick up a bill of €375 just to ensure the Tánaiste had use of the room for an extra couple of hours.
Some details of expenditure on Harney's departmental credit card were also provided. The minister would certainly never be caught short for cash, having a credit limit of €50,000 on her Visa.
There had also been the usual array of other miscellaneous bills, VIP services at Prague Airport costing €181 and the services of a guide in the Czech capital who had been paid €115. On the St Patrick's Day trip to Stockholm, VIP services at Stockholm Airport on two separate days had ended up costing more than €720.
Most controversial of all her journeys, however, was a trip in February of 2008 when the health minister travelled to Phoenix, Houston and Washington DC on an official visit to the United States with her husband and six civil servants and advisers.
The trip had already proven embarrassing at the time as the minister made an "unofficial" visit to the Super Bowl, as an important debate on health raged in the Dáil back home. The American football game had not been mentioned on official itineraries, instead just marked as a "private day".
The delegation had flown into Prescott Airport, from where they made the long drive to the charmingly named Mii Amo Enchantment Hotel in Sedona, Arizona, a full two-and-a-half hours by car from Phoenix.
There was no official business there and all of the engagements were in the city of Phoenix, more than 120 miles away. One of the attractions may have been the hotel itself, a luxury resort nestled at the base of Boynton Canyon, the famous red rock Navajo gorge. It may not have seemed the logical stopping-off point for a tour of medical facilities in Phoenix, but it would have to do.
The cost for the entire delegation at the Mii Amo Enchantment had been more than $6,600, with a booking deposit of $1,625 paid in advance of the trip and the remaining $4,932 on checkout.
Of course, the decision to stay more than two hours' drive from where you actually need to be can inevitably lead to a significant car hire bill – limousine costs for the trip amounted to more than €10,200.
There were also bills for Harney's accommodation later on in the trip, one at the Hyatt Resort for $584 and the remaining nights at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC, where more than $3,500 had been spent. For the trip, a luggage van had even been hired from one of the limousine firms in Phoenix to carry the delegation's baggage around: it had cost $452.
It was the government jet bill, though, which dwarfed those costs, coming in at an estimated €163,600. And almost all of the commentary surrounded the use of the Gulfstream IV jet, which had taken the delegation to America. On one night, it had made an unexplained detour to Las Vegas but there was no mention of that in any official itinerary.
The Department of Health insisted there had been no impromptu visit by any member of the delegation to Sin City but this explanation never seemed to suffice and as late as March of 2010, the matter was still being raised in the Dáil with Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny saying the circumstances of the trip to Las Vegas still defied explanation.
The innocent account offered by the government does appear to be entirely legitimate, however, and the mystery at last appears to have been solved, at least according to newly=released documents obtained from the Department of Defence.
A hand-written diary entry from the date of 1 February, the day of departure, said the flight had been approved by the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
It details Harney's dietary requirement, a light salad with no cheese as a starter, a main course of fish, and a fruit dessert. The meals were to be served 90 minutes into the flight with fruit, scones, tea and coffee served later in the journey. The note explains that the Gulfstream IV would not be able to land at Sedona "due to runway restrictions". It says: "Air Corps recommends Prescott Airport as an alternative, Prescott is approximately 38 miles from Sedona."
During the week, however, heavy snow was forecast at Prescott and the plane was forced to relocate to an airport, where de-icing facilities were available. "[A civil servant] confirmed that minister was dropped in Prescott and due to adverse weather conditions, she cannot be picked up from there," the diary reads. "She will drive from Prescott to Phoenix. She will be collected in Phoenix. Gulfstream IV had to reposition in Vegas due to Superbowl."
The documents, including flight confirmation records, state clearly that there were no passengers on board the aircraft when it flew to and from Las Vegas. A briefing note prepared for the Department of Defence said that no de-icing or snow removal equipment would have been available at Prescott.
"The aircraft commander therefore took the decision on 2 February to reposition the aircraft from Prescott to avoid becoming stranded due to the adverse weather conditions forecast," it says. "The option of positioning directly to Phoenix Airport, and meeting the minister and delegation there, was considered by the aircraft commander. However, no aircraft parking slots were available due to the hosting of the Super Bowl in Phoenix at that time. The decision was therefore taken to position from Prescott Airport to Las Vegas Airport on 2 February, and to reposition from Las Vegas Airport to Phoenix Airport on 4 February to pick up the minister and delegation to complete the next stage of the mission."
As part of the original Freedom of Information request relating to Harney, documents relating to the minister for health in the period between 2004 and midway through 2006 had also been sought.
However, the Department of Health – supposedly overwhelmed by the volume of requests it was receiving – did not actually supply them until earlier this year, by which time the expenses controversy had temporarily dimmed.
These expense records, now made available for the first time, show some significant further spending and revealed eye-opening details of one particular trip to Rome, which no member of the Irish government will have wanted to become public.
There were other expenses worthy of note as well: in November 2004, there had also been an expensive trip to New York where car hire for the minister had cost €5,206 and accommodation for Harney and her delegation in Fitzpatrick's hotel was €5,815. Harney's bill for the three days had been $1,583 for a junior suite in the Lexington Avenue hotel with the rest covering the cost of no fewer than seven civil servants and advisers. Harney's continental breakfast room package had been $499-a-night with small bills of $28 and $32 run up on room service and $7.50 for copies of The Irish Times and Irish Independent so the minister could keep an eye on the headlines.
As regards limousine hire, there was the usual stream of bills, six or seven in total, all with gratuities of nearly 20% added, with the tip sometimes rising as high as $199.50 for a single trip. Also featuring in the documents were the by-now ubiquitous airport transfers at Heathrow. In January 2005, Harney had been transiting through London when the embassy dispatched two cars to meet her.
A Mercedes S-Class was sent to collect Harney and a rather more mundane Vauxhall Omega picked up the remainder of the delegation. The invoice from Terry Gallagher's limousine company says simply: "Transfer to Hounslow Suite to meet Tánaiste and transfer to departure." The cost of this crucial service: €553.
All of that paled into insignificance, however, when set against an extraordinary single-night stay at the Grand Hotel de la Minerve in Rome for Harney and her assistant in April 2005. Whilst there, one night of accommodation for the two women had come to an astonishing €1,965. A superior room for the minister's adviser was expensive enough, coming in as it did at €765, but Mary Harney's "deluxe" suite had been even more, costing €1,200.
If the Tánaiste's accommodation seemed excessive, then surely the €1,650 paid for a room for a colleague of Harney seems utterly exorbitant. That junior suite, the identity of the guest blacked out in the original records, turned out to be none other than the then-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
That would probably seem about as much as it is possible to spend on a single room but the Irish government managed to go one better. Another room costing €3,198 for a single night was booked for another mystery guest in the delegation.
An unredacted version of that document, subsequently obtained for this book, confirmed the suspicion that the room had been used by President Mary McAleese, and is listed under her husband's name Martin.
McAleese has so far avoided any criticism of expenditure relating to her overseas travel, not least because all records relating to the president of Ireland are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. Her spokespeople have also routinely refused to comment on anything relating to presidential travel arrangements, her use of the government jet or Air Corps helicopters for example.
McAleese had not been slow, however, to castigate others for what she felt was the greed that had consumed Irish society in the '90s and noughties. At a December 2008 speech in Phoenix, Arizona, she said the country had been "consumed by consumerism" and that certain global financial leaders had been "overwhelmed by greed".
"We had to have it now and in this moment and I think that we paid a very, very big price for that very radical shift," she said.
In total, the bill at the Minerve for that one single magical night had come to a final tally of €21,525.64, which included more than a dozen rooms, meeting rooms, a hairdresser, food and 50 newspapers. And the reason for this momentous, profligate, obscenely expensive overnight stay in the Italian capital: the unfortunate death of Pope John Paul II and a funeral that the Irish government felt obliged to attend en masse.
Rome's Grand Hotel de la Minerve is expensive at the best of times but choosing one of the biggest religious events of this century to block-book it was always likely to drive prices in only one direction.
The bill – a document which appears like a mirror for the excesses of the Celtic Tiger – even managed to raise the hackles of the civil servants, who were forced to deal with it. More than half a dozen different room rates have been queried on the sheets, as if the original costs agreed had been altered. The possibility of a Vat rebate was also raised and it is unclear whether the Irish taxpayer benefited from this.
In the end, the bills were all settled, with no further questions asked, the costs shared amongst a number of different government departments, nobody wishing to take sole responsibility for the entire sum.
Ireland's good times were in full swing and no expense was ever going to be spared as Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Tánaiste Mary Harney and President Mary McAleese jetted off on board the government jet to Rome to pay their highest respects to the Catholic Church.
The three most powerful public figures in Ireland were not the only ones in Rome, however, and were joined in their voyage by the Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny. His hotel bill was also paid for by the taxpayer, a tidy €1,200 for a single night's accommodation listed erroneously as Mrs Enda Kenny.
More than half a dozen advisers also travelled for the funeral: Olive Melvin, John Byrne, David Feeney, Helen Carney, Brian Mason, Mandy Johnston, and Wally Young. Each of their rooms cost between €672 and €770. Other more senior civil servants also made the pilgrimage: the secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach Dermot McCarthy was there with rooms also paid for Joseph Brennan and Joanne Emmerson. Those rooms came at an even bigger premium with McCarthy's room costing €1,290 and the others costing just shy of €1,100 each.
The spending saga even continued as the delegation returned home. Flying back to Ireland on the government jet, the Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny disembarked at Baldonnel Airport in Dublin.
However, the journey did not finish there and the plane took off again for a short hop to Cork with Harney on board. The Progressive Democrats party conference was taking place there and while the government jet was not supposed to be used for party business, an exception had been made because of the unusual circumstances.
As the months passed, Harney's overseas travel bills kept rolling in: another €1,128 for hire of a Chrysler car, €1,086 for a minibus for the rest of her delegation in Geneva at a meeting of the World Health Assembly, and a €1,600 bill at the Intercontinental Hotel.
Later that year, Harney flew to Paris where she was booked into the VIP facilities. Such an arrangement was hardly unusual but one document released by the department gives an indication of just how much business the Irish government was sending the way of the airport lounges at Charles de Gaulle.
In a single month in March 2005, no less than eight senior office-holders had transited through the suites in the airport at a cost to the taxpayer of €2,400. If that pattern were replicated across the year, the Irish government may have been paying more than €25,000 a year for VIP services at a single airport.
That March, Conor Lenihan had been through twice, while Michael Ahern, Michael McDowell, Mary Harney, Mary Coughlan, Séamus Brennan and ceann comhairle Rory O'Hanlon had all visited once, with each generally billed either €437 or €218 depending on the service required.
The details of Harney's travels were – at least in certain aspects – no better or worse than those of John O'Donoghue. In one respect, they were as bad, and a universal cost figure for the health minister would have been higher, particularly in taking the immense bill for the government jet into account.
In other less tangible respects, Harney came out of the quagmire far better. The pattern of folly was not as apparent: where any number of O'Donoghue's travels coincided with race meetings, Harney always ensured there were hospital visits and meetings with medical experts.
The minutiae that had damned John O'Donoghue: the notorious hat bills, the tips for "the Indians", did not seem to have been replicated. Some of what had caused so much consternation for the Bull: the airport transfers or the massive tips to limousine drivers had since been explained away as routine procedure.
It was almost as if John O'Donoghue had been damned by being first: there was an inarguable logic in his claim that he had become the de-facto lightning rod for the anger of an Irish society seeking a scapegoat.
There were, of course, those baying for more blood, hopeful that the Irish expenses saga, like that of the United Kingdom, would see politicians continue to topple like dominos.
It was never likely to be so. The Irish political system had made their blood sacrifice, the ceann comhairle given up as an offering to the angry mob. Mary Harney's expenses, whether by accident or more likely by design, were released into a tumult of information. Day by day, there were new revelations about ministers and former ministers but they were all of a type. The capacity for them to shock was by its very nature always going to be quickly eroded.
John O'Donoghue had been doomed by having to face his inquisitors alone. Mary Harney was saved by strength of numbers, taking on those who would oppose her amongst a cadre of ministers whose ill-advised travel arrangements emerged en masse.
For Harney, it was only a temporary blip... but few of her colleagues would be spared that same embarrassment in the days and weeks that followed.
The cost per day of John O'Donoghue's chauffeur while he attended Cheltenham in 2007
Miles that Health Minister Mary Harney had to travel each day from a luxury resort to official business in Phoenix, Arizona
The cost of keeping the government's luxury Gulfstream IV jet in the air for a single hour
The amount of money "forked out to the Indians" for carrying luggage around for then Minister John O'Donoghue
The overall cost of one night's accommodation at a Rome hotel for the great and good of Irish politics
Miles from London to Holyhead in a hire car to collect environment-conscious John Gormley from a cross-channel ferry
How much it cost to send Noel Dempsey, his wife and three staff to California for St Patrick's Day 2007
The total amount of money claimed in allowances and expenses by the country's TDs and Senators in 2009
Snouts in the Trough by Ken Foxe is published by Gill & Macmillan. Pre-order online or available in shops later this week, see www.kenfoxe.com for more details
del.icio.us
digg
Facebook
Google
Subscribe to The Sunday Tribune’s RSS feeds. Learn more.
Get off to a profitable sports betting start today at sportsbetting.co.uk
Print
E-mail
Why does Ireland require TWO government jets? Are we trying to compete with "The Queen's Flight" of the Royal Air Force, Or the USAF and Air Force One. We can now no longer afford government jets, and they should be disposed of.