IVOR CALLELY HAS been granted two weeks by the Seanad Select Committee on Members’ Interests to respond to the various allegations about his travel and telephone expenses claims.
The committee has also given him one month to explain to the Oireachtas authorities why he did not declare his interest in several properties on the Register of Members’ Interests.
Callely did not declare his Cork holiday home in any of his annual filings since 2007, nor did he mention many other properties he co-owns with his wife Jennifer.
He has also returned almost €3,000 paid as a result of mobile phone expenses forms relating to his time as a TD which bore the letterhead of a company that had gone out of business in 1994.
Yesterday’s Sunday Tribune showed, however, that further to claiming mileage expenses from his Cork address while being based in Clontarf, Callely had also been claiming the full travel allowance allowed to him when a junior minister – despite living just three miles from the Dáil.
Separately, the committee will hold a public meeting in four weeks’ time to question Senator Larry Butler, who claimed travel expenses from an address in Graiguenamanagh in Co Kilkenny despite being based in Foxrock for most of his time in the Seanad.
The committee has dropped complaints against Senators Ann Ormonde, who switched addresses to Waterford while her regular home in Donnybrook was being refurbished, and Rónán Mullen, who had relayed an anecdote about being advised to claim from a separate address.
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