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Callely far from home and dry
18 July 2010 By Niamh Connolly Political Correspondent
The report of Ivor Callely’s peers in the Seanad could hardly have been more damning.
Not only was the senator criticised by his colleagues for having misrepresented his normal place of residence as Kilcrohane, near Bantry in West Cork, but he had done so intentionally.
Callely can expect no sympathy from his Fianna Fáil colleagues who consider him an embarrassment - he burned all his bridges long ago, say party insiders.
The flamboyant politician was never popular and ‘‘everyone knew he was always a ‘me féiner’ - even dragging this latest controversy out is so damaging to the party’’, said one TD.
But the voters of Dublin North Central and elsewhere will be less interested in Fianna Fáil’s image than in Callely’s repayment of the €81,000 to the exchequer that he claimed for travelling to the Seanad from West Cork since after the 2007 general election.
Callely, who has resigned the party whip over the matter, may have given a ‘‘clear undertaking’’ in June that he would repay or reimburse any overpayment of allowances.
But given his robust challenge last Friday to the findings against him by the Seanad committee on members’ interests, the taxpayer need not expect to see a refund any time soon.
Callely’s unbridled self-belief in his own cause has been said to have its early roots in a psychic telling him when he was a young boy that he would be taoiseach one day.
But most of his party colleagues this weekend believe his Lazarus powers are truly over.
An internal push within Fianna Fáil to get him to resign his Seanad seat is under way. It could yet lead to his expulsion from the party if he resists.
Back in the recessionary 1980s, the former councillor exuded an air of political entitlement when he attended local authority meetings sporting what one political source described as a ‘Bugsy Malone’ pinstriped suit.
‘‘He was all bling - flash and very brash," recalled the source who also attended the council meetings.
A lifestyle that includes several houses, a large yacht and a permatan is hardly unique for politicians, though Ivor stepped over the mark in the past and was forced to resign as junior transport minister in 2005 when it emerged he had used a building contractor for public contracts to paint his house free of charge.
Callely went on to secure a hefty 7,000 first preferences in the Dublin North Central three-seater in 2007, despite the controversy.
While he secured 2,000 fewer votes than his running mate, Seán Haughey, he still managed to outpoll independent TD Finian McGrath by 2,000 votes, though the independent ultimately won the seat.
‘‘Ivor’s problem was he didn’t get any transfers and that’s because he’s a politician that voters either love or hate, so he gets no surplus votes - that is all his own doing with the controversies," said one deputy.
Fianna Fáil won’t want him anywhere near the ticket in the next election and the path may be cleared for one of Callely’s former constituency running mates, Councillor Deirdre Heney.
Nobody expects the Dublin North Central politician to stand down quietly. He may have lost the parliamentary party whip, but Taoiseach Brian Cowen cannot force his resignation from the Seanad.
He may yet attempt the ‘Michael Lowry route’ as an independent, though he can hardly plead he was unfairly hounded by the Dublin media as the former Fine Gael TD claimed.
But it is still too early to deliver the last rites to a political career spanning 25 years, as some commentators have done. ‘‘He’s not a man to give up easy.
He would have lost a lot of support on the ground, but whether he realises this is another matter," said a source.
After he lost his seat in 2007, he was thrown a lifeline by the former taoiseach Bertie Ahern who nominated him to the Seanad.
Callely’s return to the Upper House stunned colleagues, since his own parliamentary party had refused to endorse him for the Seanad.
It’s still a mystery to many why Ahern nominated him. Some say Callely plagued the Beaumont House, one of Ahern’s local pubs in Drumcondra until he capitulated.
Callely adopts scattergun defence
There was a little less of the swagger to Senator Ivor Callely’s appearance before the Committee on Members’ Interests last week.
But a wiser politician probably would have been less confrontational with a committee of peers investigating his case.
In the course of a two-and-a-half hour hearing last week, Callely gave lengthy, tortured and often defiant responses to queries on his €81,000 travel-related claims for his second home in West Cork that he insisted was his principal residence.
He shuffled through mountains of papers to find answers to simple enquiries.
He protested repeatedly that he had been in Oslo on Oireachtas business last week, yet had found the time to research his colleagues’ websites just in case the hearing should turn nasty.
And it did.
‘‘I’m of the old stock of ‘what’s good for the goose is good for the gander’," Callely remarked pointedly.
‘‘I think the public would be somewhat amused if they saw some of the people asking questions and where the questions are coming from."
It was hardly a clever tactic, though it signalled that Callely would be happy to muddy the waters by referring to the less than transparent expenses regime only recently reformed.
‘‘He was throwing out missiles, which is foolish if you’re looking for support from your colleagues," said one TD.
The committee - chaired by Seanad cathaoirleach Pat Moylan - comprised six senators: Alex White (Labour Party), Joe O’Toole (Independent), Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael), Dan Boyle (Greens), Camillus Glynn (Fianna Fáil) and Denis O’Donovan (Fianna Fáil).
Asked by White if it was ‘‘worthy of question that you are claiming an overnight allowance to stay in your family home?", Callely responded with a protracted silence.
White, a barrister by profession, persisted several times until Callely retorted dismissively: ‘‘Senator White, as [Jeremy] Paxman would put it: ‘Oh come on. I think there are an awful lot of members of this House who own properties in the Greater Dublin Area who are from outside the region, and would comply with the regulations in relation to their expenses . . . and that is a similar situation’."
‘‘So your answer is that we should look elsewhere," White asked incredulously.
Amid the meandering responses, repetition and mangled quotations from Saint Francis of Assisi, Callely made constant references to his ‘‘personal and family circumstances’’, though he declined to clarify these matters in a private session.
The senator denied any capital gains tax benefit from defining his Cork home for sale since about 2005 as a principal residence.
‘‘We’re talking about something up to quarter of a million tax free difference," insisted O’Toole.
Callely later revealed that the Cork home is owned by his wife and that he has the right to reside there. It has since emerged that the change of ownership to his wife occurred three months ago.
As far back as 1994,Callely asked the Department of Finance whether he could claim expenses for travelling from the Cork residence.
He was told that Cork would be considered a weekend home and not a principal residence.
Yet the department’s own definition of a ‘‘normal place of residence’’ gave Callely his key defence, and this could make a legal case against him for defrauding the state difficult, though Senator Eugene Regan has suggested such a route.
It is loosely defined as ‘‘a premises which, though not necessarily one’s permanent and principal abode, is used for a period which is both of some length and a purpose which is not ad hoc and goes beyond mere shelter and passage, such as a few nights in a hotel’’.
Unsurprisingly, the committee’s report recommended the regulations ‘‘would benefit from a clearer and more robust definition of ‘normal place of residence’ ".
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