PUBLIC DISILLUSIONED WITH EXPENSES SCANDALS

Fine Gael’s Dr. Liam Twomey has said that he is disillusioned that a HSE training fund is under garda investigation. “This €2.35 million fund reportedly paid for 31 overseas trips for union officials, Departments of Health and Finance officials and HSE officials as well as all their spouses.”

“The public are cynical about state funded expenses and trips. They have seen the Fas expenses scandal and the general mismanagement of public funds during the Celtic Tiger. They also see the banks being bailed out by a public that have suffered due to the actions and poor judgement of the top bank officials. However the public do not see these same people who are responsible for causing the economy to crash being held to account. These officials may have stepped down but they did not pay a price and still walked away with a six figure pension. At the same time the public saw the value of their own pensions, through no fault of their own, disappear.”

“The public do not want long drawn out investigations with only partial truths coming out. They want an immediate end to the “people at the top” getting all the perks, while at the same time showing no responsibility for the mistakes -the big mistakes -that were made. As politicians we have to do the right thing by the people who elected us and under a Fine Gael government, we would make positive reforms to prevent the public becoming so disillusioned as to disengage completely from the democratic process. Under our New Politics policy, we would also ensure that senior executives of State bodies do not receive so-called “golden handshakes” when they leave a job because of failures in their performance.”

“As politicians, it is important that we lead in embracing this reform that will result in increased accountability and openness for public representatives and state officials.”