Big St Patrick"s Day airlift inappropriate this year

Councillors everywhere have a particular dislike of the word 'junket" being used to describe the trips overseas, believing it conveys an often inaccurate impression of what they do when they fly away to conferences or other gatherings in far-flung destinations on the public"s behalf. On the other hand, the citizenry of the country have a certain fondness for the word, believing it often accurately sums up foreign trips undertaken by local authority delegations. And nothing is guaranteed to rile an angry electorate more than the thoughts of public representatives off on a jolly to some foreign clime at their expense. Inevitably, this year of all years, a huge storm has been brewing over the traditional journeys undertaken to various corners of the world to mark the national feastday of St Patrick in two weeks" time. The controversy broke out with some ferocity last week with vitriol being spewed across the airwaves as members of the public vented their fury at the fact that Meath County Council is sending several councillors to New York and London for those cities" celebrations. A planned trip to Australia by the chairperson of Meath County Council has already been called off. That there should be such an outcry over sending representatives abroad this year is not in the least bit surprising. During the good times, the annual exodus of councillors and government ministers made for good newspaper copy but no-one was overly bothered by it. But with the economic tide having turned, it is now far more difficult to justify such extravagance, particularly at a time when joblessness in Meath has soared past the 8,000 mark, public services are being curtailed, many non-national roads look like they"ve been transplanted from the scene of the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942, and those who are lucky enough to still have a gainful employment are being asked to swallow pay cuts of over 20 per cent and more in some cases. The value for money aspect of St Patrick"s Day travel by councillors has always been questionable, with the suspicion that it brings no economic benefit whatsoever to the county. In reality, they are nothing more than a perk for local authority members to fly away to watch a parade and perhaps attend a county association function. The point has been made by some councillors that these trips are important to Irish exiles abroad who have perhaps limited contact with home and that they are happy and grateful to see Irish representatives taking the trouble to go to the United States or Australia to shake their hands. That may be so and it is important to maintain links with our expatriates, but why is it necessary for so many to travel from the county when one or two representatives, at a much reduced cost, could do the job equally as well as eight or 10? Meath County Council has said it has considerably reduced its budget for foreign travel this year to €10,000 - but this is not just about the money, it is also about the principle. This year, the optics matter more than before. Spending taxpayers" money sending councillors thousands of miles across the ocean sends the completely wrong signal to ordinary people who are being asked every day to make sacrifices just to ensure economic survival. People are crying out for leadership from our senior politicians at the most difficult time in our recent history and leadership needs to be shown at local level, too. Councillors should not have to be forced into a climbdown on this issue; they should be big and bold enough to voluntarily make a sacrifice just like thousands of their fellow countrymen and women are having to do every week. While no-one can in any way condone the fact that at least two female councillors in Meath had to endure abusive personal phone calls last week over the fact that they were scheduled to travel (leading one councillor to abandon her travel plans), there needs to be a realisation that this is a very sensitive issue with an electorate seething with anger and badly hurting from the economic meltdown the country is going through at the present time. The correct decision for Meath County Council - and the three town councils in Navan, Trim and Kells - would be, at the very least, to send reduced delegations to the UK and US, if at all. The argument is regularly advanced that the county benefits from these trips abroad. While there is some truth in suggestions that linkages with places like Cary in North Carolina may well, in the future, bear fruit in terms of investment and jobs in a high-tech business campus in south Meath, there is no evidence that a single job has been created from a contact made during a St Patrick"s Day visit overseas. There can be a good case made for sending occasional council delegations away from their home patch from time to time to see best practice in action in an area the council has responsibility for, but they should not at any time be junkets simply for the sake of allowing councillors to have a good time.