So, here I am working on my end of year accounts with the help of my wife and I read Gavin’s unbelievable report that the Dail, our national parliament, has lost 29 months worth (over 7 years) of expenses data for Irish politicians! You’d think that after almost 100 years in existence they might have got something as simple as storing expense sheets down to a fine art?

Why is this not so bad? Well the news aspect firstly. The Houses of the Oireachtas have so far been unable to locate expenses data for a combined period of 29 months. Eh? Not alone that, they want to charge me to find this information. Information that really should be in the public domain anyway. But we have to deal with the system we have…

Still feel guilty about losing that petrol receipt now?

The kicker is, it’ll cost €2,440 to pay civil servants to search for this information that should already be in the public domain. Gavin is looking for donations to pay for the FOI request but I think a national paper or media organisation should stump up the cash and help bring politicians down a peg or two when the sh*t hits the fan.