Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
IGNOMINIOUS SENATOR Ivor Callely claimed almost €3,000 in expenses for mobile phones based on four invoices that had turned out to be forgeries, it’s reported today.
The Mail on Sunday says Callely submitted expenses claims for four mobile phones in five years, from a company named Business Communications Ltd.
The paper says it has established that the company went bust over a decade ago, however, and that a former director has told them Callely was not a customer of theirs.
Callely – who is currently serving a 20-day suspension from the Seanad after being found to have inappropriately claimed travel expenses for travelling to Leinster House from an address in Cork.
Reporting the new developments, the Mail says that Callely submitted expenses in November 2007 – shortly after his appointment to the Seanad – for almost €3,000 in mobile phone expenses.
Under expenses allowances for TDs – a job held by Callely until he was defeated in the 2007 general election – TDs are allowed to claim a maximum of €750 for buying mobile phones every eighteen months.
Callely presented four receipts for phone purchases, all purporting to be issued by ‘Business Communications Ltd’, which is dissolved – and which was liquidated in 2001, before the first receipt issued in January 2002.
The invoices are so out of date that their letterhead carries a six-digit 01 number – despite numbers in the Dublin area code being extended to 7 digits in 1992.
All four of the receipts carry different signatures and all four give the amount claimed as being in ‘pounds’, despite the euro being introduced before the first receipt was dated.
As a Minister of State between 2002 and 2005, Callely would have had mobile phones provided free of charge anyway: the paper even carries details of the phones provided to him by his various departments.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Who makes this kinda stuff up? I really don’t understand the mentality of the type of people who would go out of their way to play on people’s fears with a view to stealing from them (information, bank details, whatever).
@lambda sensor: I agree, but if it is a text message it should have a source number so the telephone operators should be able to pass on the information to the gardai. I assume it is an offence to impersonate a government or state (or any) organisation.
Jail without access to the internet for the duration to these scam individuals. If coming from abroad then block the foriegn operators numbers from all texts and calls to Ireland
The telecom operators can be very quick to protect themselves but are lacking in protecting it’s customs. Bet they could stop all texts with the link in it and other scams but for some reason they seem slow to act. Yet social media platforms can stop the spread and remove stuff if needed.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: There are many SIM card providers out there now so it would be very difficult to track things back to the source. With GSM cards being so cheap and easy to use plus the availability of GSM application SIM cards it is a very simple thing to setup a PC controlled system which will spit out messages all day. Those messages are not even sent from a standard off the shelf phone.
@David Corrigan:
If it is a foreign network, block the whole network and tell them to figure it out…
@David Corrigan: I have no doubt that they are almost certainly run from a device and not single composed messages in most cases and might be hard to trace back – ISP logs could help. But even if the guys could not be stopped the mobile operators could stop messages based upon content unless they have now encrypted plain text messages. We can then go to the ISP to block access to that link. Or do what they did in the USA, do a DNS redirected.
When telecom sites were replicated and phishing sites created to mimic them these sites were blocked or unhosted within 30 minutes – so it is possible to block access and prevent too much harm being done.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: it can be configured in a way that you only see the name of the sender (the name they give themselves) like when you get a text message from your bank with a one time password to login. The sender in turn can be located abroad.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: the whole world is seeing cyber theft and scams it is not unique to telcos that you allege ( wrongly ) that are sitting back and not taking action – there is an enormous amount of money and effort and resources spent by operators to try shut down scams – unfortunately once the the internet has been opened to all the smartfones then these challenges get more and more difficult – it is not as straight forward as blocking a call ( I work in this field )
Surely the network operators can block this fake information from circulating .
@Eug J Cummins: Would be next to impossible to do this.
@David Corrigan: block mass commercial texts that use the term HSE that are not from an authorised sender
@Eug J Cummins: They can (and used to many years ago) but wont now.
It would actually be straightforward, but would block advertising companies. These are sent by international SMS relays, and it would take 5 seconds to turn on a block if no number or name present.
Ah any close contact of a positive case would know this is fake . 24 days not one call from HSE. Luckily I contacted my contacts myself . Everybody in same circumstances should do it . If you know you’ve been exposed , contact the people you were with and tell them to quarantine and call their GP. Same if you’re a positive case . Otherwise it’s “ waiting for Godot”.
Those f@#£ers should be shot with balls of there own s#%T
have your say