The goings-on at FAS and junkets to Florida just stink.   According to the Irish Times article about Harney’s supposed $410 hair salon trips, wives of FAS executives travelled to Florida at the expense of FAS. It comes to light in the article that business class tickets at a cost of €4,824.07 each were purchased.  I’m a bit confused about whether Harney travelled with these people on the business class tickets or whether they all went on the government jet.  Leo Varadker said on Tonight with Vincent Browne last night, that the party flew on the government jet, and never sought to have the business class tickets cancelled or refunded.  Either way, Harney would have been aware that wives should not be on a junket that is being paid for by FAS and tax payers money. That is an abuse.  Harney is no stranger to abusing the perks of her job however.  There was that incident where she took the government jet to Leitrim to open a shop or something.   To me, that is a bigger issue than hair-dressing bills of $410 for herself.   She turned a completely blind eye to the fact that FAS officials were using tax payers money to bring their wives on a junket.   She got away with Leitrim, she should not get away to knowing what abuses were going on with bringing wives on the FAS ticket.   Her own husband was there too, but he was a FAS executive, so I suppose he doesn’t count.  Brian Cowen is not untouchable in these matters either.  According to the editorial of the Irish Times, Cowen spoke out to defend Rody Molloy.  Coincidentally, Molloy, like Cowen is from Offaly.  Coincidentally, FAS purchased a site in Offaly to decentralise FAS to.  So, that was an unbiased decision then.  Clearly the county that FAS was going to be descentralised to was plucked from a hat.   While Harney is under attack for a four hundred dollar salon bill, nothing appears to be said about a $942 game of golf for Molloy and his chronies.  Then there is the dinner for 33 people in the Merrion Hotel and the nine hundred euro tip.     The worrying thing is, this is just FAS.  What sort of expenditure was going on elsewhere?  Are we going to have to have a Dail Committee investigating every government agency to see what sort of profligate spending was going on?  The worst thing about this is that it leads me to question the public sector spending that is out of control.  Brian Lenihan slapped a new tax levy on the tax payers of the country because public sector finances are in a mess.  Is it any wonder they are in a mess if FAS is anything to go on?

brian lenihan pictured speaking to bertie ahern. photo from the irish times.

bertie of the broken leg. why is bertie ahern in a wheel chair? he is fifty seven years old, hardly a geriatric. he has a broken leg. i wonder does he like being pushed around or can he not be arsed to ask for a cast protector so that he can move around on crutches and put weight on his leg. a lot of people with broken legs purchase these cast protectors and walk around normally. but not bertie. his must be a special sort of broken leg that requires a wheel chair.  i wonder is brian asking for advice on how to handle this difficult position he has found himself in.  “I don’t like dealing with these accounts Bertie, all these numbers, what do they all mean? tell me again, do I want to be in the red, or do I want to be in the black?   The law, I miss the law.  If I lose the next election,  because I was so unpopular, it’ll be because of this….. me, a barrister, minister for finance.  It’s just daft Bertie.  I know nothing about numbers.”