David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I refer to an article about the business of this House that appeared in The Sun newspaper. It is grossly inaccurate and misleading, and it is under the headline "'Special' allowance call. Taxpayer faces €1m bill after David Norris get initial green light for Senators to blitz college graduates with leaflets." It continues in the usual media fashion of fake arithmetic. It says that there is going to be a bill of €1 million after I requested money to cover postage so that we could send newsletters to 161,000 former students.

With stamps now €1, the newspaper multiplied the number of leaflets by that cost and said that it will cost €300,000 a year and €960,000 for the National University of Ireland. It is absolute total rubbish. It will cost the taxpayer nothing at all. I was making an argument about the allowances we are given, which are now monitored, taxed and have to be vouched and so forth. The major allowance is restricted to hiring public relations firms, expense account lunches and things like that. It is complete nonsense. We used to be able to send out newsletters because we got an allowance, in the beginning, of nearly 3,000 envelopes, which is now down to a couple of hundred a month. It simply cannot accommodate the sending of newsletters. The situation is that I am just seeking that the allowances which are already granted by the Oireachtas, which would not cover a mass newsletter, be allowed to do so. I am just suggesting that the allowances we already have, which the taxpayer has accounted for, should be allowed to be used for that purpose.

One other amusing thing it said was that I was elected with an insignificant vote of in the region of 4,700. That is approximately what a Senator receives. One would be damn lucky to get that many first preferences in a Dáil election. Anyway, The Sunis not noted for accuracy, although regrettably it does come up every day.