Stakeholder

You can nearly imagine it. Julie Andrews on the front steps of Parliament Buildings belting out that old favourite:

‘Swags for my curtains and art for the walls

Bright coloured coffee pots and chaise long for my halls

Expensive brown envelopes tied up with string

These are a few of my favourite things.

Cowboys and contractors and paid volunteers

Jobs for the ‘boyos’ and bright buccaneers

Gold plated phones that sing when they ring

These are a few of my favourite things

When the press asks

When BeeB rings

Then I feel quite sad

But I simply remember my favourite things

And then I don’t feel so bad’

As Harold Macmillan would say staff working in the luxurious offices of today’s political representatives; ‘never had it so good’.  I once worked in a constituency office and it was amongst the happiest (albeit leanest- fiscally and physically) time of my life.

Along with my colleagues, Nuala Feehan and the late Billy Feely, we laboured for Seamus Mallon in less than salubrious accommodation; once above a dry cleaner with ammonia in the air and no emergency exit and later above a barber shop, where we competed for space with the pigeons having a lie in!

In fact I bought my own desk second hand from the local Credit Union.

Member’s office allowances were not as generous back then and if you wanted to hang pictures you either brought them in from home or paid for their framing. While it never would pass health and safety standards, thousands of people came into those offices and I doubt if any thought politics was about money in the way they do today.

At the start of last week Sir Thomas Legg sent letters to all Members of Parliament asking many of them to repay legitimately incurred expenses or overpayments already approved by the Commons Fees office. While the exercise was probably necessary it was also grossly unfair because it meant applying retrospective charges to a period when rules were non existent.

So revelations, about the repayments made by Martin McGuinness, Mark Durkan or Jeffrey Donaldson are hardly earth shattering; as they were either genuine oversights or the ridiculously crude application of hindsight and a calculator. Anne Widdecombe was right to say it was unjust. The letters received made it clear that MPs had done nothing wrong and that their integrity and character was not in question. It’s now well documented that Westminster was a financial labyrinth when it came to issues of transparency and some moat owning MPs with a penchant for no fixed abodes clearly had a far too cosy relationship with the Fees Office.

Whatever excuse for Parliament and its long established poor practices; there can be no excuses for the financial rules governing the Assembly. This is a relatively new institution and it’s now abundantly clear that some people did not take very long to exploit its loopholes.  But first let’s be fair to the men and women on the hill; they did not do anything wrong. The rules were there and to say they took full advantage would be an understatement. As politicians they should have known better is an even greater understatement.

Of course some of the personal revelations by the BBC are startling. £26k for an office refurbishment by a DUP member; £12k for telephones by a Newry Sinn Fein MLA; £6k for envelopes and sponsorship of soccer clubs all appear crazy and the public are right to be angry.

Businesses would not; and in many cases could not rack up these costs. Naturally office expenses are legitimate but so too is the pursuit of value for money, especially public money. The greatest abuse of the Assembly payments system appears to be the laxity governing payments to the political parties themselves. While it is acceptable for political parties to levy their representatives for some kind of contribution to the central party function- that amount should be capped.

Many people are uneasy about Government plans to introduce public funding for political parties but the recent revelations that some £2million of public money has made its way via Assembly expenses to Sinn Fein’s HQ’s, Connolly House is more than unsettling. This practice lies in the hands of the political classes and they should end it.  Presently the Assembly administration appears more pre-occupied with the leaking of the expenses and not the loopholes that allow the system to be undermined. Add that to your favourite things, Julie!