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TWO DUBLIN CITY Councillors will not have to pay back the €6,352 they spent printing about 140,000 anti-water charge leaflets.
Tina MacVeigh and John Lyons, both members of People Before Profit, were found to have not broken any rules as there was no specified printing limit prior to January 2015, a council spokesperson confirmed.
A limit of 5,000 copies per councillor per month was recommended at the council’s Protocol and Selection Committee of today.
This arrangement comes into immediate effect and is subject to review in six months.
MacVeigh and Lyons welcomed the decision, saying they hadn’t done anything wrong.
“We hope that any new limits introduced reflect the democratic right of all constituents to be communicated with regularly by their elected representatives.
“Communication and consultation is at the heart of the democratic process and is an issue for constituents who feel strongly about the fact that they usually only hear from their elected representatives when they are looking for votes at election time,” MacVeigh said.
Lyons said People Before Profit “condemns the misuse of public monies: from the €64 billion that was wasted bailing out six private banking institutions in 2008; the €96 million spent on the Poolbeg Incinerator without a sod turned and opposed by successive councils, to the ongoing publicly funded disaster that is Irish Water”.
From TDs and Senators sending out Christmas cards to local Councillors engaging in junkets, we have clearly and consistently opposed public representatives, political parties and unelected city managers wasting public monies.
MacVeigh said the party regrets that this issue was “leaked to the media by an elected representative of this Council in an attempt to call into question our integrity”.
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140,000 leaflets is a joke. And their response on their Facebook page is too – that the leaflets were necessary to keep their constituents informed. The irony must have been clearly lost on them seeing as they posted that defence ON FACEBOOK. Using the internet! And then they also TWEETED the defence too.
They also noted concern about littering in their response. Again, the irony was lost on them.
€6000 on printing expenses is just ridiculous, especially from people supposedly defending the less well off. Where is the credible left in this country?
ALL politicians are the same,left,right and centre,
All out for themselves,
At our expense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How was printing leaflets against the water charges ‘all out for themselves’? What benefit or gain did they get from this? And to the Ignoreland lad. Yeah many young people use FB and Twitter, but many don’t, and you only get that info on FB and Twitter if you go looking for it. So for example for the pensioner whose afraid Irish Water will take the money out of her already squeezed pension how do you get the message out to the that no this isn’t the case etc.
Considering some of the junkets that the other councillors go on (which PbP councillors do not on principle) This whole ‘inkgate’ affair is making a mountain out of a mole hill
Paddy why didn’t they pay for it out of their own pocket,
They complain about tax payers money being wasted constantly,and rightly so,
But they’ve gone and done the exact thing they complain about!
That’s alright then. The rest of us rate and property tax payers will pick up the tab.
Your property tax money was diverted to irish water, sorry.
Not all of it Kevin and some will now be used to pay for this waste of public resources.
If your referring to these councillors they don’t claim any expenses for themselves thus saving more than any fg/FF politician. It’s 500 million taken away to irish water I thought would concern you more but ok…
Nice to see you commenting again Reg, you disappeared yesterday after claiming you claimed you’d willingly run a woman over in your car.
100′s of million wasted by the last 2 governments and you’re crying over 6 grand Reg? you are a clown!
No I was about yesterday Norman, commenting on the cricket and some other things. I thought I was on your ignore list?
Les its principals, that 6.000 could of gone into improving things around the city or homeless for example!
It’s not really the money Les, it’s the principle of it. The ultra lefiies are the first to be giving out about the waste in public money (and rightly so in many cases) but here they are at it themselves.
It all does add up though. Never walk past a penny on the floor myself!
What and 100′s of millions couldn’t? Christ almighty, it’s like Tom Duffy’s circus in here today.
Reg it’s always nice to remind others of the mindset of people like you.
You claimed before you were knocked off your bike, but yet you’re willing to run a woman over who is a carer for her disabled husband and son.
Real pillar of the community you are.
Now I’ll say goodbye again till the next article you post on.
I’d rather if I was still on your ignore list!
Reg your original whinge was about taxpayers footing the bill, nothing to do with principles. It’s hilarious for supporters of this government to be discussing matters of principle in any case.
Reg after your disgraceful comment yesterday, I bet you would!
What a shower of jokers these people before profit crowd… Using public money to tell people not to pay for public services… With all they’re whining about the money that was being wasted on irish water surely to god they realised that this was misuse of public money via printing costs or are they just complete thickos??? Thats a rhetorical question
Yes Shanners, it’s terrible that someone should print an opposing view against all that crap from IW that’s been posted through my letterbox which was printed with my misappropriate money (LPT…….
Whats gpod for the goose and all that.
I didn’t realise giving a Tax dodger like Denis O’Brien 500million to install meters instead of using it to fix the bleeding pipes was a public ‘service’
500 million! Stop exaggerating. That’s the entire cost if the entering project. Since DOB only owns half of GMC sierra and 3 other companies are installing metres I seriously doubt he’s getting that figure.
Explain how one of the companies was awarded the contract for installing before it came into existence
So what pbp really said is if they do it, we’ll do it too? Hardly the attitude to have if you maintain you’re trying change politics
Don’t understand why they did not ask Aengus Ó Snodaigh for a couple of ink cartridges. Sure he has enough cartridges to print 1.12 million leaflets.
Their disgust at it being leaked to the media/public/taxpayer is duly noted.
Also noted. More of the same.
Same principle – just haggling over the cost.
Could’ve said that about Phil Hogan’s €27,000 trip to Rio in 2012. Was that money spent in the local economy?
I never saw this much investigation into the 2 million spent on Christmas cards last Christmas. Bigger hole than campaign leaflets which everyone claims for. That said big parties use party funding for their campaigns. Pbo not yet a big party
2 million spent on Christmas cards? Please tell us more.
The double standards of AAA in this case are shocking.
Oireachtas spent 2 million euro on Christmas cards from senators and TDs. Clearly a bigger than waste than campaign leaflets
They didn’t. Show the proof…
Have you anything to back up this 2 million spend or did you just do a David Drumm and pluck the figure from your ……..
I think if they spent 2 million on christmas cards every year we’d have heard about it somehow.
Paper Before Profit…
Except it wasn’t the AAA, but don’t let facts get in the way of a good bout of righteous indignation.
€2 million?!!! Are you out of your mind?! This is from 2011 and the figure then was €10,000:
http://www.joe.ie/uncategorized/government-christmas-cards-cost-taxpayer-almost-e10000/30977
So you were just exaggerating the figure by 200 times its actual amount. A minor error.
Google is an amazing thing. You can find out lots of things from it.
The bill for Christmas cards printed for all TD’s totaled €2,305…not €2 million.
Oh look! The total cost actually dropped down to €2,305 for Christmas 2014!
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/politicians-sending-fewer-christmas-cards-this-year-1.2036340
So the entire Oireachtas’ Christmas card cost was nearly THREE TIMES LESS than the councillors’ printing activities!
Ah facts. They’re great.
Stop with them facts with you Ignoreland, the lefties hate them. So many green thumbs for figures plucked from the David Drumm school of numbers. Says a lot about Journal readers really.
I’m a leftie too, Reg – a real one that believes in taxes and using the state finances responsibly to give effect to goals like equality of opportunity and protecting the vulnerable. NOT for stupid partisan political reasons that are also damaging to the environment.
Nothing wrong woth those type of lefties Ignorland!
I mistook 2000 for 2 million. Sorry people.
500 million diverted from property tax to irish water is of bigger concern.
Maybe that’s what happened the people before profit councillors, Kevin? They meant to type in ‘print 14 copies’ and instead typed ‘print 140,000′.
An easy mistake to make.
Good on you for coming clean Kevin. Very hard to take you seriously on anything though when you come out with rubbish like that.
My mistake was from reading an article wrong. Even then what I read didn’t effect any decisions I made today other than mistyping a comment.
These councillors know they take home a lot less money than other councillors such as FG / FF so I’ve no problem with that void been filled up with campaign spending. Once they gain majority they can introduce pay/pension reforms
Paper preventing profit, for right wing poster boys. 6k cry me a river, where’s the outrage of 8bn per year of interest on a debt that’s not ours?
The majority of that 8bn interest is for debt that is absolutely ours Chris. Less than 2 billion is for bank related debt. Most of the rest is for money that was borrowed to keep the show on the road over the last seven years.
Real socialists don’t believe in unfair stealth taxes and treating water as a commodity rather than a human right. I’d much rather receive literature that honestly engages with issues that really matter to people (as opposed to claiming credit for filling in some pot hole that the council was going to do anyway and similar such nonsense that opportunists in other parties indulge in) and informs me how I can stand up for my rights alongside my neighbours. Far better this rather than the tax payer bank rolling Denis O’Brien’s daily rags that indulges in slandering ordinary people who are fighting back. For the uninformed, the Independent Group of Newspapers only continues to function because the state owned bank wrote off its huge loans. PB4P councillors have consistently opposed wasteful junkets that are just simply an excuse for a free holiday, yet one would think from the faux outrage posted here that these councillors were acting out of pure self interest which is far from the case.
Money well spent !!
Imagine spending that money to try and stop people paying for a bloated, crony filled, multi-billion, open swallow, euro eating, billing service, monster quango…………oh wait!…that’s a good idea.
Except it wasn’t their money to spend
I’d love to be corrected on this but didn’t Mark McCystal take this Government to court for essentially pushing forward a ‘Yes’ campaign for the Children’s Referendum in 2012 and so inappropriately spent €1.1 million on it and the Supreme Court found the Government acted wrongfully and in breach of the McKenna principles? The Government were not instructed by the Courts to pay back that money so essentially, even though McCrystal won his case and costs, NOTHING happened!
So, the Government can basically put out propaganda for their own ends and when found in the wrong they can get away with it -democracy, me arse!
Anyway, €6 grand of taxpayers money for 140,000 leaflets to keep the people informed about the IW beast is money well spent, in my honest opinion. It works out at just over 4 cent a leaflet. Had the Government tendered for a printing company for the job, they probably would have made a balls of that one too!
I need to get some stuff printed in Dun Laoghaire. Should I drop into the People Before Profit office on George’s Street or Reads Printers across the road ;-)
Reg of your a public representative and it’s in the interest of the people please do go to that office, or if you need to make any phone calls to Kenya in the interest of the public there is an office in Mayo you can use.
In both cases of its private business I’m afraid you’ll need to pay for it yourself
Well they’re entitled, aren’t they ?
Yes, that’s what the loony left have. A sense of entitlement.
Would that be the same entitlement Michelle Mulherne FG td had when she rang her ‘friend’ in Kenya?
Jason nothing to say about Michelle or is it ok for FG to rip off the taxpayer?
At least she could be shamed into paying the money back – these people before profit have to shame.
David she wasn’t shamed, a freedom of information request by an RTE reporter identified her.
She claims she made the calls as part of her work as a TD, although I didn’t realise her constituency extended to Kenya.So if a valid exense why did she feel the need to pay it back? Was it because she was caught?
It’s exactly because she was caught – she wouldn’t have paid a cent for her phone calls unless she was caught (hence the statement that she was shamed into it).
It’s amazing that a woman hasn’t heard of Skype in the day and age. Sure they have video chat and all…
They all love to have Snouts in the trough at our expense
Stephen, Please!
Are you suggesting that this printing exercise was not carried out with the people’s best interest in mind?
Sure PBP got lots of printing tips from The Shinners.
Alan, are you referring to Gerry’s lot and ink cartridges or Eamonn’s lot and counterfeit fivers?
Take your pick.
6k on leaflets that tell the truth, that’s why the establishment are nit picking. Still not paying a cent to corporate water.
There’s a huge difference between putting eight BILLION in the bank accounts of millionaires and spending 6 grand on a few poxy leaflets to push the political message you were elected to spread.
If you can’t beat them join them springs to mind , I don’t agree with it but save the faux outrage for the next payment towards the odious bank debt foisted on our national debt by this and the last government .
You government fans boys were all very quiet when the pension reserve fund was being pillaged to set up a mega quango or our property tax was collected under false pretences and used fund the set up of irish water .
You might also ask your masters will there be an investigation into the water metering contract which magically landed on Dennis the menaces lap despite his company having no tax clearance to tender for it .
So are you in favour of their excessive use of public funds?
Did you miss where he said he disagrees with it?
Hahaha epic
I guarantee they’re getting better value for money than the water sham, they’ve spent hundreds of millions of our money and still won’t convince people to pay, these idiots spent €6,000!
Thomas,
140 K of leaflets should only cost a couple of hundred. These people used printers with printer cartridges that cost a fortune. Your value for money theory statement is a sham. They knew they should not be doing this at rate payers expense hence they used office printers rather than a professional printer that would bill the council.
Your missing the point Alan but carry on there
Posters Before People, maybe?
Or
Propaganda Buggers Popularism
So will they be compensated for an attempt to obtain money from they by false pretences, or will the gardaí investigate this. Tina Mac Veigh is one of my local councillors and it’s great the way she keeps her constituents informed and involved. These councillors being sent bills for doing their job is a disgrace, and another councillor leaking this allegation is pathetic.
140,000 constituents?
Get real, she should know better.
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