My god! Unions and civil service bodies in “feathering their own nest” shocker. Surely not? But I thought that the union leaders on 6 figure salaries understood and sympathised with the ordinary worker. Surely they wouldn’t rob people twice? Are subscriptions not enough of a rush for them, they have to rob more on top of it!

Why can’t the media name the officials?

“have done” They are still trying to dictate. All the money should be paid back by the union and let them worry about recouping from the offenders.

The money was just resting in the account for the union officials… nothing unusual here…
go on now move along…..
nothing corrupt to see here…
its not a slush fund for union lavish piss ups… WHAT.!!!! NO….!!!!
Bertie said it was allowed………!!!
Lets have another report that goes nowhere…..
Lets appoint friends of friends and spend some money asking the wrong questions about the money…
Thats the solution to the problem…
Just not this problem..!!!

The unions were bought & it’s no surprise . They are dinosaurs & have done so much harm to our economy. Jobs & jollies for the boys.

This is only the tip of the iceberg – millions go unaccounted or hidden from view to fund junkets from all sectors in government to local authorities !

This disclosure just reinforces the fact that ‘those at the top’,whether it’s Trades Unions, HSE, Government Departments, Local Governmen, Banks etc., etc., that when it comes to spending Tax Payers money, accoutability and morals just go out the window!
They spend these monies, in some instances not for what the money was allocated for, as if they had a God given right to do so and to hell with the bedgrudgers!
These people realised a long time ago that it’s OK to have your nose in the trough, as no one is ever brought to account for misappropiation of these monies!
It’s a matter of fact that the higher up the chain that you are,in any of these bodies, the easier it is to do it and if you are found out, well so what? No one has yet went to prison for these crimes and we have to ask why that is?
Are these people above the Law of this Land? It would seem that they think so, as these practises just go on and on!
It seems that every day that there is a new disclosure and it it will continue like this, as there is no leadership at the top and worse still no morals!
You will always get these things happening where that Country has ‘light touch regulation’!
God help Ireland!

This was the madness of partnership. Bertie bought the unions to keep everything quiet. As a result we got the highest paid public service in the world and a bunch of six figure union heads. It must be reversed!

At least €5million of taxpayer’s money was lodged into the slush fund, which was opened and controlled by a senior Siptu official, Matt Merrigan, and another chap called Jack Kelly. However, because no proper records were maintained (e.g. there was no record of the payments in the Department of Health) , it’s likely there was other sources of income to the account. The money was supposed to fund the training of low-skilled health sector employees. However, a significant amount of the public money was siphoned off to pay for foreign travel for SIPTU officials. HSE auditors counted up 31 foreign trips across the globe in five years. By pure coincidence, several of coincided with St Patrick’s day celebrations in New York and Australia.
Meanwhile, top earners in Siptu (earning €100,000) refuse to take voluntary pay cuts. Just last week Siptu paid its staff bonuses totalling €250,000

They certainly look after their own.

It never f*****g stops and it always seems to be “professional people”. It’s long gone time to bring these freeloading bastards to order. Massive protests at every opportunity is what is required. Write to and e- mail minister and TDs. Flood TD clinics with protesters. We have nothing further to lose. We have already lost believe and hope in this Government.

No wonder the unions are full square behind the Croke Park Agreement. Gravy all round please.

surely this should be the gards investigating this illegal activity ? with a good splattering of the revenue commissioners ?

One word – FRAUD ! Lock em up

I’m laughing maniacally as I type this. I fucking hate unions and nothing makes me happier than a €4m controversy devouring them. Now if we could disband them and make them illegal that’d be great, stop them from having an undue influence over the market…

The unions in Ireland for lots of years were the only shelter and vehicle for workers to protect themselves. They were not perfect but at least they looked more or less like they were performing one of the fundamental roles that they had protect terms and conditions of it’s members. Well, primarily we have to understand that unions are not a separate body within our society, so if the last 20 years, at least our society promotes values like easy money, “climbing up ladders” etc, we should be surprised if our union leaders were and still are part of this game! By the way, all these years were sleeping in the same bed with the rest of dodgy fakers, government and IBEC. The responsibility for the creation of these freak monster called SIPTU and the other shower called ICTU is ours. If the unions don’t for fill their prime role, that is to be the cornerstone of Democracy and work school for us all to learn how to practice it, we going to be constantly disappointed by them. There is only one way forward for our unions, participation, when all of us be reps of ourselves and do not need that hierarchy that look after only their pockets, than we might start feel proud again about our unions.

What’s a bloody civil servant doing in the US on Paddy’s Day? I can just about get my head around Kenny flying over with a bunch of shamrock for Mrs. Obama but some lopsided gobs**te of an overpayed junket junky spewing his stupid grin around Manhattan or Times Square at my expense makes my blood boil.
I know at this stage that we employ cretinous, numerically illiterate, gombeens in high office of the civil service but do we have to parade them around the world to shame ourselves…or maybe it’s to gain sympathy for our plight and get a dig out…

The government and the bankers have pissed away up to 100 billion and impoverished us for a generation; but here we see the peasantry getting angry about two corrupt individuals who pissed away a couple of million; not enough to fund the bank disaster for 10 minutes. How the bosses (in the banks; in politics) at the top must be laughing. And what’s with this sheep-like groupthink? Two corrupt union officials means that the “unions” are to blame? (hear the bosses pissing themselves in the background?). What group next? The Jews? Then we have ‘contributors’ telling us that the unions must be destroyed! Where was this plan carried out before? Nazi Germany for one. The right to be in a union is a basic human right; like free speech;like life. Irish people and others across the world actually lost their lives to obtain this right.

So long as those at the top (and their puppets like John McGuinness) keep private sector PAYE fighting with public sector PAYE they’e laughing all the way to the bank!