Eoghan Harris (Independent)

Not everyone likes to travel. People speak of travel nowadays as if it were a luxury to get on a plane. Everyone travels nowadays. Such trips are quite hard work for the people concerned and are tiring. Nobody who is past the age of 24 wants to be flying around the world to meet the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. It is necessary work for the Irish people.

It is bad for politicians to indulge the kind of populism and pettiness to which I referred because it becomes a habit. RTE now follows the BBC in everything. Since the BBC is searching through people employing their relatives, then straightaway it must be done in Ireland. One would think they would come up with something original in the way of pursuing the expenditure of public money than repeating everything that is done in the BBC.

I remember years ago when I first joined RTE that with my first pay cheque I bought an old Mercedes from the great Labour Party TD, Sean Dunne. I always wanted to have a Mercedes; it cost £50. I felt obliged to ask him why he, as a Labour Party TD, was driving a Mercedes. He replied that when he drove down to Meath to meet the big farmers, he wanted them to know there was someone serious in a car coming to meet them. He made no apologies.

A few years later another Labour Party politician was targeted in Phoenix for having what it called a "yacht". It was a small 12 ft. dinghy with a centreboard, but he was so intimidated that he seriously thought of selling it. Stop this kind of colonial populism and fear of being politicians. Stand up and be proud.