Mairtin O Muilleoir came under attack on the BBC’s The View programme last night, for claiming that he was intent on developing the right to borrow, freed from “the shackles” of Westminster. He didn’t say how much he planned to borrow if given that power, but both the Ulster Unionist Party and the Social Democratic and Labour Party immediately painted vistas of him plunging the north into a black hole of debt. The trouble with having an Opposition is that they feel compelled to assault the government/Executive on everything they do, which ends them up in the boy-who-cried-wolf cul-de-sac where, when they do criticize something that deserves criticism, only their own supporters will credit them with believing what they say.
And speaking of money, the DUP MP Jim Shannon is in a bit of a pickle at the moment. He’s had to pay back £14,000 in expenses, after a part-time member of his staff claimed for driving 20,000 miles in a year. His single expense claim matched the claims for one quarter of the entire House of Commons. No one is accusing Mr Shannon of making false claims, but the government watchdog , the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority officer described Mr Shannon’s accounting system as “woeful”. It seems Jim got £38,000 extra for office costs and more than £40,000 for additional staff costs.
Not surprisingly, the watchdog declared “The situation is unsustainable”. Overall, during 2014-2015, Jim’s travel and subsistence claims were over £14,000 more than any other MP. After discussion, Mr Shannon was ordered to repay £13,925.86.
Yes, Virginia, the name Jim Shannon does ring a bell. Back in 2007, the Strangford DUP man wnet ot Argentina to do some shooting. His target: doves. “Over there, they’re a pest and they’re treated as vermin”. So Jim, with sixteen other people went over to do their bit for Argentina. Jim wouldn’t tell reporters how many doves he shot but a suggested total was around 9,000. The dead birds were used by locals, Jim said. “I ate them myself and they ate them as well”.
Isn’t the dove a symbol of peace?
Failed to mention the reasons for the extra mileage in your article Jude.
That’s because I don’t know what they were, Scott.
Examples given were delivering food from food banks to vulnerable people, travelling to sort out issues with older people who aren’t able to get around or couldn’t get in connect as they can’t work computers or mobiles and travelling outside his constituency to help people who contacted him.
An overzealous constituency office that was taking on things that council should be dealing with.
Bad organisation and suffering from a lack of knowledge of the rules, but certainly no inappropriate or fraudulent behaviour
You must still believe Grimm’s Fairy Tales!
Dont take my word then Sherdy go read the parliamentary report yourself it’s very clear than nothing fraudulent or improper occurred.
Scott
Yes the devil is in the detail.
From the findings it seems his staff were bringing food from foodbanks to peoples homes amongst other things.
If the report is correct it would appear to be a mixture of over reaching their duties and bad record keeping.
He shouldn’t be shooting doves though!
Gio
Of course,as anyone who has watched Spotlight in the past year will know,the Sinn Fein record in claiming expenses is spotless!!
Argenta
Do you not know it is every republican’s duty to fleece the British exchequer of every last penny, by whatever means possible?
Gio
I’m also not a fan of killing animals for sport, but a friend of mines been out to Argentina and apparently they are a pest.
Flocks of hundreds of thousands of them destroy fields of crops if not controlled.
Tasty as well I hear lol
“If the report is correct it would appear to be a mixture of over reaching their duties and bad record keeping.”
Is that all gio?
I cant think of a better way of using public money to buy votes, can you?
We cant say they aren’t innovative.
jessica
Bringing food to people that need it. What a bastard eh!
Damned if he does and damned if he don’t.
“Bringing food to people that need it. What a bastard eh!
Damned if he does and damned if he don’t.”
I never damned anyone gio.
I think bringing food to people that need it is a very nice thing to do.
However, that was never his job or his responsibility.
I take it since these deliveries were claimed for out of the public purse, they were also delivered during their work hours.
Traveling so many miles to clock up such an expense bill takes time, did losing these hours impact on the actual services he should have been delivering?
If not, then how can you justify keeping so many people on staff if being absent from expected duties to take on a delivery service has no impact?
The fact that this mileage was claimed for out of the public purse and allocated to work not related to constituency work they should have been doing but for however good a cause, has to have the motives questioned.
Yes, he could very well simply be a kind hearted man who wanted to help his constituents and beyond apparently, and was unfamiliar with the rules and made a genuine mistake.
How long as he been in politics, long enough to harbour such naiveties, he doesn’t look a young man to me?
Is he kind hearted? Possibly, not sure how travelling overseas to shoot birds supports that but does not refute it at the same time.
Was there any other benefit to the party from his actions?
Well, yes. If the people receiving nice food hampers to their door were aware it was courtesy of the DUP, it is hardly going to have a negative impact on the chances they will vote DUP. Perhaps you disagree?
Were they aware it was the DUP providing the service?
Did the party benefit in that area in the election compared to previous years?
Is the party going to let Jim pay the money back or will they reimburse his losses?
You think the above questions are being unreasonable do you?
The Jim Shannon financial debacle reeks of government/civil service doublespeak.
To a simple person like myself, he claimed and received £14,000 which he should not have claimed, and now he has to pay it back.
But he asserts he did nothing wrong and there is no stain on his integrity!
Any other citizen/subject found to wrongly claim such an amount of money from the tax man, dole office or any other government agency would surely find themselves in court, most likely landed with a hefty fine and/or a jail sentence.
But yet an MP can do this and the MPs’ watchdog just say: ‘Give the money back, Jim, and we’ll say no more about it – after all, you’re one of us’!
Maybe I’m being cynical, but maybe I’m entitled to be.
Great.story.jude.
Thanks. Jim.
Thank God he is not a Shinner or the whole Assembly would be in crisis. Allegations from Suzanne,Ruth etc would uncover an arms deal and the profits going into Gerry`s account.
Those who provide and manage food banks are regularly accused of misleading the public on the issue of food poverty. One senior Whitehall source described the food bank issue as:
‘fairly misleading and emotionally manipulative publicity seeking.’
One can only speculate what the Whitehall source may have for lunch today, breast of pheasant or a spot of Gressingham Duck?
If it had been a shinner ,”the biggest show in the country” would have got a week’s whining from Norman,George ,Thomas from north Belfast and Patrick from Derry .
Don’t forget ex RUC man Alex from Lisburn Michael.
The Pope’s Homeland
What prompted hot shot Jim Shannon
To wander so far from old Dungannon?
Common senses
Suggests expenses
Not the pigeons’ religion for his cannon.
According to a BBC article, DUP members of Parliament top the list of those MP’s who claimed the most expenses. Ian Paisley Jnr and Jim Shannon topped the list. Out of around 650 MP’s, the DUP’s 9 MP’s have come to the attention of English people who frown at the DUP’s list of expenses which their taxes paid for. Would it be fair to say that this is just 1 reason why the DUP are such devout and hard core Unionists? Even Jeffrey Donaldson (yes, the same UDR Warrior that struck terror into the PIRA when in uniform) claimed nearly £1,000 for movies rented in his Hotel. I guess British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was on to something when he called Unionists “Spongers” on a live TV address in the 1970’s…..
Mairtin O Muilleoir wants the powers to borrow? Well there’s an old saying: You need money to make money or as my dear mother says: “Money goes to Money” in reference to rich people getting richer and the poor poorer. Sure borrowing money is dangerous and its important to realize that. I personally don’t like borrowing money, I refuse to have a credit card despite being offered 1 hundreds of times, my father calls them “Debt Cards”. I only spend what I earn and I save about 30% of my earnings. Debt is modern day slavery but that’s a whole different topic.
I admire Mairtin very much, I’ve spoken to him many times on twitter and he follows me. Its unbelievable how a man being dragged from Belfast City Hall by the RUC because he would only speak Irish went on to become Lord Mayor of Belfast and is now Finance Minister. I agree he should have more borrowing powers, he’s a successful businessman and he knows what needs to be done to bring investment into the North, especially from the USA. As I said to Mairtin many times, the best thing the North could do to bring in high paying jobs and that is make all STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) courses free of charge, starting with GCSE’s.
“I agree he should have more borrowing powers, he’s a successful businessman and he knows what needs to be done to bring investment into the North, especially from the USA. ”
It was actually a very good move.
The alternative would be to bring in new taxes which would not go down well with the electorate.
The fact we now have borrowing capability will put it up to unionists who say this is out wee country. You aren’t a country if you cant borrow and control your own finances.
It will move us from being a charity case relying on hand-outs to being self sustaining. This will put pressure on the costs of marching season and policing thousands of marches each year. Will this be supported if people can see our national debt go up because of it.
Will unionists still reject projects such as the one at the Maze when the lost income has direct impact on our pockets.
What impact will it have on attitudes in England when they are lending money to Ireland and watching pathetic flag protests. Will they become more or less concerned about how this place it governed and if unionists are unable to change will it help or hinder the push for an Irish brexit regardless the result of the EU one.
I am impressed.
I agree with much of what you say Jessica.
The focus here shouldn’t be about making our people super rich (I’m not opposing general increase of wealth, obviously) but their quality of life, that’s two very different things. Ireland ranked No.1 in the World for best quality of life in 2005, I believe we’re lower down the rankings now but still in the top 10 (the UK was in 18th place the last time I checked). Ireland cant be a great economic power like the UK or USA unless its population increases to around 50 million, if the Irish “famine” never occurred then our population would be around that or maybe more, hence why we have a Diaspora of nearly 100 million people worldwide but not in Ireland itself.
We CAN increase our demographics but only if abortion stays illegal, the family is promoted and the culture of emigration (the curse of Ireland, the very life blood draining from us) is stopped. Immigration is not a good way of increasing demographics because it lowers wages and it creates social problems. South Africa’s population increased by over 500% in less than a century, there’s no reason why Ireland cant do the same if the right policies are pursued.
The English people are usually kept ignorant of what is going on here in Ireland Jessica and how their taxes are wasted. If they knew the truth I suspect they would hit the roof as many have done when they learnt of how much their cash has been going down the drain.
Indeed that’s the key argument of Unionism for staying in the Union. Unionists say we’re apart of the 5th largest economy in the World but what does that mean to people in the North? We’re certainly not seeing any of those benefits and we’ve been apart of the Union for nearly a century! Indeed boasting about GDP is basically boasting about how many millionaires live in your country, it means nothing to the average joe like GDP Per Capita or Quality of Life does. Unfortunately (and very surprisingly) nationalist politicians don’t combat this easily flawed and defeatable Unionist argument. The USA and China are the top 2 biggest economies in the World but yet they also have a terrible lot of poverty, especially compared to countries like Ireland or Sweden. The UK itself is ranked as the most unequal country in Europe!….
“Ireland ranked No.1 in the World for best quality of life in 2005”
Ryan, first of all ignore these rankings, they are crap.
Do you think they are based on the opinions of the Irish people?
They are based on statistics, Ireland at that time had more millionaires per head than any other. What it doesn’t tell you is that this was due to extortionate house prices and that the majority of the same millionaires were mortgaged to the hilt and having to work every hour god sends, often two people working just to make ends meet. Some millionaire lifestyle.
25% of Irelands GDP is spent on welfare, we are in the top 10 most socialist countries on the planet.
Irelands economy is overheated, Fianna Fail allowed the country to get itself and our people into massive debt to accrue false wealth with an overinflated property market.
To allow it to happen, the banks loaned out money like it grew on trees, every country in the EU found themselves able to borrow at the same rate as Germany and many countries went la la, Ireland included.
Peoples wages were increased, the public sector pay was and still is too high. This is all still Fianna Fails fault by the way.
Many people in their government but also financial consultants who advise them (of which I worked in one such company at that time), should have known better but they were also making too much money and so it went on. Ireland was the single most unprotected country on the planet when the banks finally crashed.
Ireland has came through it well and will regain all of the money invested into the banks which is fantastic. But we are still left with an overheated economy in the south and a bloated public sector in the north.
Ireland both parts desperately needs an economic adjustment. Unification may also an opportunity to rebuild the whole country once the unionist affliction has past over the coming years.
Is Britain or the EU more likely to help with this? I don’t know but it is what we will need to happen over the coming decade.
“Ireland cant be a great economic power like the UK or USA unless its population increases to around 50 million,”
I doubt Ireland could ever be a global economic power and I don’t think we should ever want it to be.
But it is important that we are not completely reliant on the interconnection through England to Europe for all of our gas and therefore energy supply. They could literally if they wanted turn out our lights.
We could be self sufficient through renewable energy and sell the overspill back to England through that connector as we do already with the off shore turbines.
I also would not want to see Ireland destroyed through industry, but we have the potential to more than triple our tourism industry. We currently need an additional 5000 hotels to meet the present demand that Dublin is struggling to find the room for. A more disparate tourism market spread throughout the whole island and not so focussed on Dublin would allow this and create thousands of construction jobs throughout the country. I would like the Maze project back on the table and the land along the M1 developed with sections given away to corporate businesses who would pat to develop factories and warehouses, creating a drop shipping industry in Ireland similar to that in the midlands of England. Thee should be decades of construction work at that site alone.
“We CAN increase our demographics but only if abortion stays illegal”
We don’t need to increase our demographics and not one single party on this island wants to make abortion legal so that isn’t going to happen. If you mean allowing women to have abortions when the child is already dead or when their health is at risk then I fully support this and the church should be ignored. Some churches are against blood transfusion, but they will lose support over this. Young people have no time for old farts in churches more interested in their coffers on Sunday than the well being of the people.
“The English people are usually kept ignorant of what is going on here in Ireland Jessica and how their taxes are wasted. ”
They are no different than the Irish people who are kept equally as ignorant. Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are still pursuing water charges at a time when billions have been lost in taxes from US corporates avoiding paying their dues which would have covered the costs to sort out Irish water and keep it free.
It is not easy to get a message across to a population, even one like this that you would think would be.
“Indeed that’s the key argument of Unionism for staying in the Union. Unionists say we’re apart of the 5th largest economy in the World but what does that mean to people in the North? ”
England is the 5th largest economy in the world thanks to its industry and financial sector in the south east. The rest of the UK does not add to that and no, it is meaningless except if your future economic plans are no more ambitious than to live off the hand outs England is prepared to send us.
That is not the type of country I want to be part off. I know Ireland has great potential.
“Indeed boasting about GDP is basically boasting about how many millionaires live in your country, it means nothing to the average joe like GDP Per Capita or Quality of Life does. Unfortunately (and very surprisingly) nationalist politicians don’t combat this easily flawed and defeatable Unionist argument. ”
I don’t know how you work that out, but GDP is how much money your country is bringing in over what you are spending on public services. The greater the GDP, the better those public services should be. I don’t see how it could be linked to the number of millionaires.
Where are you getting this stuff from?
Ryan,the biggest joker is Patrick from Derry who manages to lambast “the politicians” with one notable exception being the stoops.Also if there is a more annoying voice on the radio I have yet to hear it!
The best have got to be George from the Shankill Michael, he’s on the Nolan radio show so often he could possibly take over from Stephen. I spoke to George once over twitter but he blocked me when I politely pointed out his argument was flawed….very democratic…..
There’s also a “Mary from Derry” a Waltar Mitty type character who launches tirades on both the Nolan show and “Talk back” where she places herself or a member of her family at the centre of every major event or tragedy that happened in Derry over 40 years. Usually she or her family witnessed a SF “villain” as the culprit and I have to say her’s most be the most unlucky family in Derry’s history!
One thing I did not see in the article was the fact that Mr Shannon was not charged with any criminality. He could have been claiming benefits at the same time as expenses. The expenses being taken directly from the claimant’s account, straight into an executive parties coffers, but we won’t go there. There is a party leader who when there are serious allegations made against him including murder. Jude is the first to remind us that he has not been found guilty. This party leader is alleged to have ordered the abduction, torture, shooting, secret burial and decades of denials. This leader was not killing pests, well I suppose that depends on your perspective.
Keep off the grass Jude you may harm a slug.
No doubt a real son of Ireland and good republican, not to mention all that polluting the Irish countryside.
Sinn Fein/IRA MLA’s son has been convicted for his involvement in a £16,000 (about €21,000) fuel fraud.
“At Newry Crown Court last week, Fearghal McMullan (33) was sentenced to a one-year prison term, suspended for three years, for his role in evading tax through the attempted transportation of diesel from Northern Ireland to Britain in 2013.
His father is East Antrim MLA Oliver McMullan, who was reelected to Stormont following the Assembly elections earlier this month”.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/sinn-f%C3%A9in-mla-s-son-convicted-over-fuel-fraud-1.2665127