The Front Pages
Senator Ivor Callely continues to cover himself in glory, with today’s Irish Independent headline ‘Callely: I got €1,500 from invoice firm chief’s son’. The paper has learned that the disgraced senator took a €1,500 donation from Kevin Baxter for a golf classic in 2005. Baxter whose father, James, was the director of Business Communications Limited – the defunct company whose invoices were submitted by Mr Callely to support his expenses claims.
The statement was revealed from records from the Standards in Public Office Commission, after the troubled senator told an Oireachtas ethics watchdog of his donation. Mr Callely could now be possibly facing three separate investigations into his alleged conduct.
The Irish Times are in no mood for good news either, running with this morning’s headline ‘Shrinking tax tale signals weak recovery and tough budget’, as the newspaper reports that public finances ‘are showing little sign of recovery’, as tax receipts fell by 5.5% from July 2009 to July 2010.
Tax revenues are now €250 million below the Government’s expectations for this point of the year and and the gap is unlikely to close by the end of the year, a fact that could have drastic implications on what looks to be an increasingly tough 2011 budget.
