An update on one of my first posts here.
Four months since we started asking questions about procurement procedures in the HSE's national ambulance service senior HSE managers have ordered an audit of all procurement made by the office over the last few years.
That first story on this topic was followed up earlier this month after papers released through Freedom of Information (I love it when the FOI people release something useful) established a direct link between McClintock and Patron, the official Irish suppliers of the company that paid for the Las Vegas trip.
I have another FOI request in with the HSE looking for details about another big supplier but the HSE now say it won't reply to that request while this review/audit of procurement is ongoing.
Before we ran the second story that showed McClintock had authorised payments for "pre delivery inspections" I asked the HSE a series of questions like: what exactly was this service it was paying Patron for, and, had there been a tender process?
I also asked whether the HSE still thought there was "no issue" with a manager accepting an all expenses paid trip to Las Vegas from a supplier. At the time they said they were too busy to answer before publication because of the outbreak of swine flu.
OK... maybe we didn't give the HSE enough time to check in to a complicated procurment process. Almost a month later, however, there were still no answers but there was an announcement of an audit. It's hardly a ringing endorsement of McClintock.
Incidentally, McClintock's expenses for 2006 and 2007 (also released through FOI) are amazing. For 2007 he claimed €27,543 on subsistence - overnight claims. The HSE's subsistence rate in 2007 was €140.44 per night. That means, if all that claim is for away days in 2007, the HSE paid for him to be away from base for 196 days in one year.
There are roughly 230 working days in the year so that's a lot of away days. Subsistence payments are only paid for "officers engaged on official business away from their headquarters".
McClintock, according to the interview linked above, has a home in Derry. The national ambulance office is in Naas, Co Kildare. So I asked the HSE where was McClintock's officially designated base?
Guess what?
No answer...
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The Horror of Industrial Scale Child Abuse in Ireland
Last week Judge Sean Ryan released a report on child abuse in Irish industrial schools and other institutes that was 10 years in the making. Former industrial school children were at the launch in the Conrad hotel near St Stephen's Green but were barred from hearing the judge read a short statement. Considering the judge and the rest of the commission wouldn't answer questions it was a strange decision to have the press conference where no questions were allowed but the victims could be further upset.
The full report is online here. Whatever about the many criticisms victims have about the commission, its final report is a devastating account of the abuse carried out by members of Catholic orders over the last century.
A natural question is "why didn't someone say stop earlier?" From the report it's clear that many did but they were ignored. We focused on Letterfrack last week as even among the other institutes it stands out for the scale of abuse forced on its children.
One of the most incredible stories revealed in the report is that of Noah Kitterick. This man was abused by Christian Brothers from 1924 to 1932 in Letterfrack in Galway. After fighting in World War 2 he began to campaign in Ireland for abusers in industrial schools to be brought to justice. He was convinced that the abuse he suffered was still going on and he wrote letters of warning to Eamon DeVelera, leading Catholic church members and the press but to no avail. The Christian Brothers dismissed him as being on a "blackmail ticket".
Suffering from depression Kitterick killed himself by setting himself on fire in Hampstead Heath in 1967.
Diarmuid Whelan, a historian with UCC, wrote a letter on Friday to the Irish Times (third one down) revealing that Kitterick's real name is Peter Tyrrell. Whelan uncovered Tyrrell's memoir a few years ago and has published them in a book called Founded on Fear. You can only imagine the pain Tyrrell must have suffered by being dismissed as a crank or blackmailer that eventually drove him to such a horrible suicide.
At least now Tyrrell and others have finally been validated by Ryan's report.
Michael O'Brien, on last night's Questions and Answers gave a powerful account of what the abused have been put through by the orders, both while in their schools and when under questioning by their lawyers at the commission.
Testimony like that is likely to force the hand of the congregations to offer more compensation than was agreed in that 2002 deal with Michael Woods.
The full report is online here. Whatever about the many criticisms victims have about the commission, its final report is a devastating account of the abuse carried out by members of Catholic orders over the last century.
A natural question is "why didn't someone say stop earlier?" From the report it's clear that many did but they were ignored. We focused on Letterfrack last week as even among the other institutes it stands out for the scale of abuse forced on its children.
One of the most incredible stories revealed in the report is that of Noah Kitterick. This man was abused by Christian Brothers from 1924 to 1932 in Letterfrack in Galway. After fighting in World War 2 he began to campaign in Ireland for abusers in industrial schools to be brought to justice. He was convinced that the abuse he suffered was still going on and he wrote letters of warning to Eamon DeVelera, leading Catholic church members and the press but to no avail. The Christian Brothers dismissed him as being on a "blackmail ticket".
Suffering from depression Kitterick killed himself by setting himself on fire in Hampstead Heath in 1967.
Diarmuid Whelan, a historian with UCC, wrote a letter on Friday to the Irish Times (third one down) revealing that Kitterick's real name is Peter Tyrrell. Whelan uncovered Tyrrell's memoir a few years ago and has published them in a book called Founded on Fear. You can only imagine the pain Tyrrell must have suffered by being dismissed as a crank or blackmailer that eventually drove him to such a horrible suicide.
At least now Tyrrell and others have finally been validated by Ryan's report.
Michael O'Brien, on last night's Questions and Answers gave a powerful account of what the abused have been put through by the orders, both while in their schools and when under questioning by their lawyers at the commission.
Testimony like that is likely to force the hand of the congregations to offer more compensation than was agreed in that 2002 deal with Michael Woods.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
MEPs and expenses
There is huge outcry in the UK at the moment over the Telegraph's expose of what MPs have been using their expenses to pay for. My favourite one so far is the £2,000 claim for clearing a moat.
Irish TDs are better paid than their British counterparts and don't have the same entitlement to claim for second-home expenses. TDs still run up huge expense bills though and some claim over €90,000 a year. But because TDs' expense claims are entirely unvouched we'll never know if they have been using public money to clear their moats or buy dog food.
The expenses of Irish MEPs is also under the spotlight with the European elections on the horizon. Unfortunately MEPs' expense claims are nearly as unaccountable as those from TDs. MEPs are entitled to €17,539.98 per month to pay their staff. As we previously discovered at least six Irish MEPs use part of this money to employ a family member. The Ireland East three, Mairead McGuinness, Liam Aylward and Avril Doyle did not return calls on the topic.
By-the-by Kathy Sinnott, who currently employs one family member, is facing legal action from one of her former constituency workers over the way she allegedly treated a non-family member of staff.
The MEPs I contacted for that story were almost universally annoyed and agitated at being asked about their expenses. Colm Burke, who doesn't employ a family member, berated me for at least 10 minutes for not covering the work he does in Brussells - like travelling to Gaza.
MEPs need to be open about what they are claiming. They get a raft of other expenses such as a monthly €4,202.18 "general expenditure allowance" that is also unvouched. As it stands we are not entitled to find out from the European Parliament how much of this expense is claimed by each MEP.
On Monday Jim Higgins was asked about his expenses by Vincent Browne on TV3 and said a breakdown of his claims was on his website. They weren't.
Since then he has put some details up. This is more than most MEPs have done but still offers us no way of independently verifying if the large sum of money being paid to him is being spent as is it should be. Hardly satisfactory considering what has been revealed about the politicians in Britain over the last week.
We'll hear more on MEPs' expenses over the next few days.
Irish TDs are better paid than their British counterparts and don't have the same entitlement to claim for second-home expenses. TDs still run up huge expense bills though and some claim over €90,000 a year. But because TDs' expense claims are entirely unvouched we'll never know if they have been using public money to clear their moats or buy dog food.
The expenses of Irish MEPs is also under the spotlight with the European elections on the horizon. Unfortunately MEPs' expense claims are nearly as unaccountable as those from TDs. MEPs are entitled to €17,539.98 per month to pay their staff. As we previously discovered at least six Irish MEPs use part of this money to employ a family member. The Ireland East three, Mairead McGuinness, Liam Aylward and Avril Doyle did not return calls on the topic.
By-the-by Kathy Sinnott, who currently employs one family member, is facing legal action from one of her former constituency workers over the way she allegedly treated a non-family member of staff.
The MEPs I contacted for that story were almost universally annoyed and agitated at being asked about their expenses. Colm Burke, who doesn't employ a family member, berated me for at least 10 minutes for not covering the work he does in Brussells - like travelling to Gaza.
MEPs need to be open about what they are claiming. They get a raft of other expenses such as a monthly €4,202.18 "general expenditure allowance" that is also unvouched. As it stands we are not entitled to find out from the European Parliament how much of this expense is claimed by each MEP.
On Monday Jim Higgins was asked about his expenses by Vincent Browne on TV3 and said a breakdown of his claims was on his website. They weren't.
Since then he has put some details up. This is more than most MEPs have done but still offers us no way of independently verifying if the large sum of money being paid to him is being spent as is it should be. Hardly satisfactory considering what has been revealed about the politicians in Britain over the last week.
We'll hear more on MEPs' expenses over the next few days.
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