The Front Pages
What do you do when you get the sack? You may whinge about it at first but then you realise you have a few quid stashed away and that will get you by until you find something new, right? Apart from the whinging, this is not the way Senator Ivor Callely reacts to a chopping.
Callely is no John O’Donoghue but the former Dublin North TD has made lame excuses for pinching €80,000 of taxpayers’ money in expenses while unemployed. He resigned from the Fianna Fail party yesterday but intends to clear his name over the expenses claim which was made from his west Cork address after he lost his seat in the 2007 general election.
Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Callely moaned; “I had spent 27 years of my life in politics, and here I was now, just 50, out of a job and out of an incomeâ€. Oh we feel your pain Ivor. But what about the thousands of people in their 20s and 30s who have been out of work longer than the time they spent getting their degrees?
The Sunday Times delivers the poor-me comments from cunning Callely also. But the main story is designated to the MV Rachel Corrie. According to the report, Israeli forces took peaceful command of the Irish-Malaysian vessel close to coast of Gaza yesterday.
Good news for the five Irish passengers who have been aiming to take aid to Gaza with six Malaysians. All eleven passengers were taken to a detention centre and will be deported before things get out of hand again. We do not need to see a repeat of last Monday’s violence.
The Sunday Tribune has dipped its wick in another political figure that got his fingers caught in the expenses jar. The opening paragraph reads: “Dublin-based Fine Gael health spokesman James Reilly claimed more than €32,000 for travel and subsistence despite having a home in Rush”. Subsistence? Are we talking about a load of pints and steaks here? What a guy.
