June 01, 2003
For a few dollars more
The MSNBC website has a paean to Irish Bed & Breakfasts , though the one mediocre B&B the writer encountered was in Salthill. Typical.
Mind you, not every visitor was slumming it in B&Bs.
PHILIP Ruddock [Australian Indigenous minister] has demanded an urgent explanation from ATSIC chairman Geoff Clark of his $31,000 taxpayer-funded trip to Ireland last year - to determine whether he should be sacked.
His comments came after The Weekend Australian revealed Mr and Mrs Clark spent just two nights at the week-long seminar that was the main justification for their trip. Mr Clark had given Mr Ruddock an agenda saying he would be attending the whole conference.
ATSIC papers, obtained under Freedom of Information, show the couple spent five of their seven nights at hotels in other parts of Ireland, rather than at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University in Galway.
They also spent several days with few official duties in London and Singapore, almost all at public expense.
Being from Ireland, I didn't realize there were countries where you could be sacked for pulling the p*ss out of the public purse. I mentioned the expensive travels of our own boyos back in January.
Posted by Monasette at June 1, 2003 09:40 PM