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THE OIREACHTAS PUBLIC Accounts Committee (PAC) is set to discuss the costs of the Office of the President at a meeting this morning.
There has been much debate about the move in recent days – with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin among those labelling it unconstitutional.
Many people have also questioned the timing of the decision, one month out from the presidential election on 26 October.
So, how did we get here?
At a meeting last Thursday, the PAC discussed its plan to scrutinise how the annual budget of the president’s office is spent. The overall amount spent by the office is known (direct expenditure was €3.6 million in 2016), but a breakdown of where the money goes is not publicly available.
The Office of the President is exempt from Freedom of Information legislation, an issue raised by some journalists who have sought information about expenses.
Speaking at the meeting, PAC chairman Seán Fleming said: “If the committee were seen to not want to discuss the matter, it might raise even more significant questions than any questions we might get answered if we had a discussion.”
The Fianna Fail TD said he “would not be comfortable having a meeting on the issue after the close of nominations” tomorrow, so here we are.
“I do not think anyone would want to be here two weeks before an election campaign discussing the matter. If we are to do it, we have to get it out of the way promptly.”
Fleming said he will not allow members at today’s meeting to ask any questions about the president, just expenditure.
The President is not answerable to the House, which is a long-standing principle that we will honour entirely. If anyone asks a question about what the President did or did not do, I will rule it out of order.
Martin Fraser, Secretary General of the Department of An Taoiseach and the Accounting Officer to the Office of the President, has said the decision is unconstitutional.
‘Above politics‘
In a letter sent to the PAC on 17 September, Fraser stated: “The Office of the President is separate and distinct from other organs of State, such as the Executive (including Government Departments), the Oireachtas and the Judiciary.
“This is often expressed in terms of the President being “above politics”, which is a useful description and I believe widely understood and respected, both by other arms of the State and more importantly by the people.”
Fraser added that the legal position in this regard “is set out in detail in the Constitution” – namely Article 13.8.1, which states:
The President shall not be answerable to either House of the Oireachtas or to any court for the exercise and performance of the powers and functions of his office or for any act done or purporting to be done by him in the exercise and performance of these powers and functions.
Fraser said he was surprised that the PAC had not sought legal advice on pursuing the issue.
Speaking at the meeting last week, Fleming said legal advice had not been sought “because I understand that we will not direct any questions to [Fraser] in respect of the President and will question him only in relation to the financial matters for which he is Accounting Officer”.
In his letter, Fraser also raised concerns about the “political impartiality of the Civil Service” as well as timing issues.
“It is an inviolable principle that civil servants should not become involved in election campaigns. The fact that the current campaign is unusual, in that a sitting president is seeking re-election does not affect the principle involved.
“I cannot accept your suggestion that the campaigning period has not yet started. It is absolutely clear that a campaign for the office of the presidency is fully underway,” Fraser wrote.
In relation to timing, Fleming said: “This committee has never in the past or will never in the future allow its work to be dictated by timings of elections.”
‘Impact on presidential election’
Labour TD Alan Kelly questioned why the committee had not sought legal advice about the matter. He suggested that proceeding with the examination “will be damaging to this committee and will have an impact on the presidential election”.
“The fact is that this is an ongoing campaign. If we are going to jump into this now, it will really say an awful lot about this committee,” he said.
Sinn Féin TD David Cullinane said he has “no difficulty” with the committee discussing the expenses but does not “want us to waste our time if Mr Fraser is going to come in and say he cannot answer any of the questions we ask”.
A number of the PAC members criticised Fraser’s letter, with Fianna Fáil TD Marc MacSharry saying the “tone of the letter did bother me”.
We should do it. We should keep the questioning very much to the question of where the money goes and what happens to it.
Independent TD Catherine Connolly said the level of argument against inquiring into the spending worried her, stating that she was fed up of “patriarchal” arguments from people who think “we know best; do it later; now is not the time”.
“There is nothing wrong with information, dealt with properly by ourselves in an open and accountable manner,” she said.
How much we learn about the expenses will become clear later this morning. The meeting is due to commence at 10am in Committee Room 3. You can watch proceedings here.
With reporting by Christina Finn
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Colonial imperialist terrorists doing what they do!
@joe moody: Protecting people from terrorists that planted bombs in Shops , Pubs , Restaurants, Hotels . They didn’t care who they killed .
@Jack Moss: Balkymurphy massacre, Derry Bloody Sunday hasn’t really covered your comrades in arms in Glory. Don’t try to come here and claim some sort of moral high ground while defending British forces in Ireland or rest of world. Your national is currently supplying the means of genocide in Palestine.
@Jack Moss: how is that protecting people? It could’ve damaged the peace process and cost people their lives
@North Phone Bowe: Your hero McGuinness and his Derry brigade murdered 51 innocent from the Derry area . 28 of them Catholics . People like Catholic teen Kathleen Feeney shot through the head by the IRA . Spares us your crocodile tears for those killed on Bloody Sunday .
@Jack Moss: shankill butchers , loyalist collusion…etc etc.. U LOL crew only see one side always and it’s orange
@Pork Hunt: Nobody defends/ justifies the murders committed by loyalist terrorists though. It’s only Provo supporters who seem to forget that the Provos murdered more Catholics than the British Army during the Troubles. Revisionism is good business these days. I don’t forget the poll carried out at the end of the Troubles that showed both Catholics and Protestants in the high 80s% say there was no justification for the terrorism committed in their name.
@honey badger: it’s not surprising to see you in support of a brutal apartheid occupying force.
Both the IRA and Hamas have done heinous things, for sure but both of them are a result of unjust suppression and disenfranchisement of people, illegally. Neither of them grew in a vacuum.
If you brutally push people down, they will rise up with whatever means they have at their disposal. I’ve no doubt that Palestinians would love to face Israel down with a conventional army but Israel has seen to it that that can’t happen. You reap what you sow.
@Soundy Sound: Lovely word salad and whataboutery. What “unjust suppression, disenfranchisement, illegally” were the Catholic victims of their supposed defenders guilty of? Strangely, Israel/ Hamas has/ had zero to do with it.
@Pork Hunt: The Shankill butchers murder 9 Protestants .
@Soundy Sound: They didn’t rising up . The majority of Catholics were supporting non violent organisations like the civil rights movement and John Humes SDLP . The IRA did not represent the Catholic population of NI . The 26 counties was a 98 percent RC state. It political system was made up of Republican parties . 40 thousand Protestant fled the 26 counties from intimidation and murder during the war of independence. The Protestant population fell to 3 percent. All this is long forgotten. Ireland was not partition in 1921 . The UK was partition . Irish Nats gain 26 counties the UK lost 26 counties. The UK people and unionists just accepted it and move on . Violence has always been the first choice for republican organisations . They always see themselves as the victims in history.
@honey badger: There is literally no point in arguing with someone who’s starting point is claiming that the nationalist population in Northern Ireland were not discriminated against by the ruling system.
@Jack Moss: protected nobody, and in this instance, actively pushed propaganda that could have caused serious damage to a fragile peace process.
Actual state-sponsored terrorism from so called “security forces”
@Alan Roddy: The security forces had a 99 percent arresting rate . Over 25000 republicans were arrested and prosecuted for terrorism and criminality . Less then 200 were killed by the security forces over 25 yrs of the troubles . 3500 people were killed almost half of those were the security forces . In 69 NI was facing an all out civil war . The only thing that stop it going over the edge was the security forces . Over a 100 thousand people died in the three yr civil war in Bosnia . 3500 died in 26 yrs in NI . If it wasn’t for the security forces and emergency services nurses , doctors , paramedics, fire fighters that all stood in the face of terrorism the IRA would have succeeded in murdering tens of thousands more .
@Soundy Sound: What you mean to say is you can’t comfortably justify why the Provos murdered more Catholics than the British Army. The only place you heard there was no discrimination was in your own head. It’s an odd thing to throw out there. Discrimination was so bad that the provos had to kill more of their own people than the British Army.
RUC might’ve changed their name, but didn’t change their anti-Irish senior personnel.
@Uí Braonáin: If I remember rightly if you got a train from Dublin to Belfast the train was often stop before crossing the border on the recommendation from the RUC north of the border . People were put onto buses for their own safety to travel the rest of the journey because the IRA was constantly blowing up the rail line . They blew it 26 times in six months . Trains carrying people from the south came within minutes of being derailed .
British spy planes hover over Gaza daily passing information to Israel on which tent full of innocent defenceless women and children to blow up next
@Kevin O Brien: Are these the same spy planes that are collecting evidence of war crimes etc?
@Kevin O Brien: Ah! Come on now Kevin!!
Any article on the cop saying no iPas are unvetted , which he clarifies as fingerprinted as identified. Kids in transition year get more vetting for work experience. No comment from the cop on forced deportation , it’s just part of the process. What a joke.
It was a common tactic of the IRA to leave secondary devices to kill the people that attempted to help the injured . The Claudy bombings consisted of three car bombs left on a public street. Car bomb two and three were timed to go off a few minutes after the first bomb detonated . There purpose was to kill the people that ran out onto the street to help the injured of the first bomb . 9 died 6 of them Catholic .
@Jack Moss: Why do you keep bringing religion into it.
@Daniel Roche: People are living in some fairytale land that the IRA were defenders of Catholics which is untrue.
Pikes in the Thatch.
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