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PHARMACEUTICAL GIANT PFIZER has confirmed that 177 jobs are to be cut at two of its manufacturing plants in Co Cork throughout next year.
Staff were told this morning that the jobs will be lost through 2013 at its plants in Ringaskiddy and Little Island, subject to consultation.
“This is in response to reduced volumes of medicines manufactured at these sites and the need to re-scale operations appropriately,” the company said this morning in a statement.
The company said the expiration of its patents on the anti-cholesterol drug Atorvastatin – better known by its commercial brand, Lipitor – had meant a global decline in its demand.
Sales of the drug have fallen in recent months after the drug’s patent expired in the United States late last year and within the European Union last month – meaning it is now possible for other companies to produce cheaper generic equivalents.
Patent expiry means greater competition which impacts global demand, and we need to readjust the scale of our manufacturing operations,” Pfizer vice-president Dr Paul Duffy said, insisting that Ireland remained a ”key strategic location” with a dozen sites around the country.
Seamus Fives, the site leader at the Little Island and Ringaskiddy sites, said the decision to downsize the operations was “very difficult”.
“Little Island and Ringaskiddy are important sites within the Pfizer manufacturing network and all our colleagues deserve recognition for the great contribution they have made to manufacturing some of Pfizer’s leading medicines,” he said.
Fives explained that the expiry of a patent had two effects – as the manufacturing volume required reduces significantly, while the presence of a larger number of competitors means the costs of manufacturing must also be reduced in order to remain competitive.”
Bloomberg has previously estimated that Lipitor’s sales could be halved once its worldwide patents on the drug expire.
The move means Pfizer is cutting its Cork workforce by a fifth – around 900 of its 4,000 Irish staff work in Cork. Pfizer had already laid off around 30 sales staff in December following the expiry of the US patent.
The company also operates manufacturing plants at Grange Castle in Dublin, Newbridge, Askeaton in Limerick, and at Loughbeg in Cork. It also has administrative operations at Citywest and Ringsend.
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Is this guy a complete moron? You dont use an office print to print thousands of leaflets! This what commercial printers are for.
He doesn’t look & never did look the sharpest tool in the box.
He is obviously a total moron. I wonder were his bags checked leaving Leninster House each day?
Obviously you’ve never met the guy. He’s an incredibly hard working and intelligent TD. I lived in Ballyfermot and regularly received very useful information on goings on nationally and locally from him. Tax revenue was spent on informing citizens is well spent in my book.
@Oisin, well spent? He probably put a republican spin onto the pamphleys, in my view he essentially wasted €50,000 on cluttering people’s mail boxes with rubbish. It’s called email and an subscription list, so you can reach your target audience without wasting resources. He is a jackass and a moron.
@Oisin , did he print your book for you ?
Utter bullcrap Oisín. Informing citizens is a good thing, but this is a man who squawks about value for money at any given opportunity. Now he’s been caught out. Can’t you see that?
Just stick what he wants to say in a newspaper; probably wouldn’t have cost him that much! Everyone knows that door to door fly posting has very little real effect on the population; most of them going directly into the bin, or line the budgie cage or even get the ‘aul peat fire going in the morning.
That’s quite a bit of toner.
I wonder who paid for the paper the toner ended up on?
WE did of course! while there is now a limit on how much toner these office thiefs can take they are free to walk off with any amount of other stationary items!
“Wolfe Toner!”
Maybe he was using it to “black-up” for a minstrel show or possibly some other activity where it helps to have your face blackened…….
The excuse doesn’t sound right to me. You would need industrial printers to print that amount of leaflets.
maybe printing of some of FG’s photographs?????
The proud claim to be ” most prolific leafleters in the country” illustrates the total disconnect between the polictians and the public , not a care in the world that this is public money being used so flagrantly .It really just goes to show that for all their bluster , these guys have their noses as deep in the public trough as the rest. Not exactly the greenest of policy either!
And amazingly 25% of voters think that this shower are a viable alternative to the government.
Damn voters, they even voted for FG and Labour as viable alternatives to FF.
Dermot. Soundbites aren’t policies. SF have no idea how to fix the problems that are currently affecting this country. They are great at proclaiming that we should burn bondholders and not pay the household charge but they have absolutely no alternatives to offer.
so his excuse is pretty much that it would be too expensive to pay for it himself??
Basically yeah. I would also argue there is a HUGE difference in constituency work and political campaigning which seems to have been the main use of all these cartridges.
he still has an outstanding bill for extra cartridges which obviously has his account in arrears to the tune of about €3500 but many others have a bigger tab in the Dail bar!
O’Snodaigh is a weasel. His political career will be most remembered for bursting through the Taoiseach’s entrance to Leinster house with his ‘followers’, being not quite sure what to do when the gates gave way & then being put on his arse by that lone guard! The guard should have immediately promoted to sergeant for that
How much more of this blatant brass necked nonsense are ordinary people going to take? It’s a bloody disease! I heard him on the radio trying to justify it. My 7 year old son could even tell he was waffling!
Possibly the worst part for me is the way he brings in the protests over the proposed closure of Crumlin Children’s Hospital as an excuse for his actions. That’s just pure scummy behaviour but then again we’re talking about Sinn Fein here so what else can you expect?
Amen to that, Brian.
it was for the children!! didn’t have enough money for toys so gave them ink instead!
I am not one bit surprised hearing Sinn Fein taking all they can from the Irish people, this shower are more corrupt morally and ethically than any other party in Ireland. Propaganda is the best skill they have which unfortunately 25% of Irish people have fallen for according to the latest opinion poll. The Nazis said all the right things to the German people back in the thirties. Make no mistake this shower of gangsters and criminals would turn Ireland into their own fiefdom more corrupt than anything we can imagine.
Karl Power – u hit the nail right on the head. SF are dangerous & I wish many people would open their eyes & see them for what they are. Your last sentence is spot on.
You are spot on with your assessment Karl. Whatever problems we have right now, it would be nothing to the disaster that would befall us if Sinn Fein got their grubby hands on a bit of power. Opinion polls are all well and good but there’s a lot of time before the next election and I’m sure we’ll hear plenty more stories like O Snodaigh’s.
“Make no mistake this shower of gangsters and criminals would turn Ireland into their own fiefdom more corrupt than anything we can imagine.”
No, the public would never elect such people!
O’ wait,… How many years again was FF alone with its cronies elected? 26/28 years in total?
Just saying – wouldn’t be the first time!
Amen Karl
We are already a fiefdom…… and made so by Irish criminals and gangsters, albeit in blue shirts rather than green!
Comment of week contender Karl
Just like FG and Lab did last year ….
Agree 100% karl. Well said.
Well said Karl. They are just so negative all of the time which is so easy. Tha hard part is coming up with credible alternatives which they seem to have no interest in. I really hope that poll wasn’t very accurate but presume they got a bit of a bounce from their household charge stance.
Everyone know that desktop printers are ridiculously expensive when it comes to printing large amounts. The fact that they are using these desktop printers to print such a high amount of leaflets shows that the likes of Ó Snodaigh, looking like a particularly pompous village idiot in the above photo, are so far removed from the real world that it would be laughable if it wasn’t so wanton.
The best description of him to date – “popmpus village idiot”.
I wonder what model the printers are. With this amount of printing it would have to be a more heavy printer as that volume of printing, loading paper, changing cartridges just could not be accomplished with a low grade Dell Inkjet.
Printers of the larger store records of the amount of printed pages over their lifetime.
It would not take a super-sleuth to get to the bottom of this.
And we see a commercial printers going out of business yesterday with the loss of 60 jobs?ridiculous stuff.
Comment of the week sir, the party that claims to be the representatives of the ordinary joe public abusing state i.e. ordinary joe publics taxes and 60 jobs gone in Dublins oldest printing firm!
But Ross he would have had to pay a commercial printer. Instead he decided to freeload from the state.
inkredible!
That’s enough you, get your coat.
I wonder was that around the time that Aongus and his merry men led a vicious assault on the rear gates of Leinster House until they opened and a brave Garda waved his baton and dispersed them !
They could have walked in the front door and collected the cartridges like everyone else.
What a fool. What a waffler. His answers on morning Ireland showed contempt for the taxpayer paying for these ink cartridges. His constituents must be knee deep in leaflets!
This is theft. Has it been reported to the Gardai?
All printers keep a page count, if the Oireachtas IT unit recorded these regularly it would be very easy to check if he did actually use his printer for all these prints or not.
They couldn’t keep track of Healy-Raes phone calls so I don’t think they will have a clue what’s being printed. Actually I’m surprised they even know what he’d taken, it sounds like a free for all
According to what he said on Morning Ireland, he used them in his constituency office, not his Leinster House office. That alone should have set off alarm bells.
As regards the price being paid for them, a contract like that would have to be put out to tender and the details should be available under FoI if anyone feels so inclined.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh might have questions to answer but I have one too…
Where in gods name is the Dail buying these cartridges from?
I bought FOUR for a colour laser printer and including tax, etc that is usually lumped on, including transport costs, I got mine far, far cheaper!
€130 each for one? I honestly can buy four for that Cyan, Magenta, Black and Yellow – the basic ones needed for a laser colour printer).
Someone seriously needs to do better sourcing at the Dail!
The sad truth is probably that they’re being bought off a friend of the guy who’s in charge of the stationery purchasing.
Wholly unprofessional, but hey, they’re the big shots!
An office printer has bigger ink cartridges than a home printer and therefore are more expensive.
Very true but note the following from the above article:
“Ó Snodaigh added that because Sinn Féin had a far smaller Dáil representation at the time the toner cartridges were received, *** it did not get priority access to the printing presses in Leinster House *** – and had to use *** desktop printers*** supplied by Leinster House instead.”
I use an office laser printer and at home, a Samsung CLP-315 Colour laser printer and still the prices with good sourcing are far cheaper!
Someone in the Dail is buying from somewhere far too expensive.
I’d be asking seriously “WHY?” to that person!
Interesting point, and also public information,. However the 50k figure is a media estimate. But it is sourceable. …
The “media estimate” you speak of has been verified with the Oireachtas, by us. It’s also the basis on which Ó Snodaigh’s outstanding €3,700 bill for cartridges post-2009 has been calculated.
And yes, you can buy black toner for the appropriate printer for $61 on Dell.com. The Oireachtas says it’s tied in by its tender.
Well seems I stand corected by Gavin there, which is fine… Now I wonder which parliamentarians Facebook friend won the tender… and let me guess ‘where’ they buy the ink they sell on to the Oireachtas … I wonder…would it be Dell.com?
Seriously who grants a render to a business that are more than twice the price of buying from dell.com? And when does that tender run out… I can beat the price by 25% straight up! Plus the quality will remain as it is.
Actually you know what? If I were being really sarcastic (and I am) and also paranoid (which helps these days) It would actually pay anyone with the aforementioned tender to offer Ó Snodaigh €100 a week into his back pocket to take the ink cartridges and literally dump them in the bin on his way out the door… The supplier would then get to replace those cartridges at €130 each!
Of course that all just me blowing hot air…. there is obviously no evidence that any parliamentarians fiends or family have the current contract for cartridge ink sales to the Oireachtas.
But this is where I came in… it is sourceable!
Hang on, they were cartridges for Dell printers but used for an “industrial photocopier”? What were they doing, breaking them open, or just taking the dye out?
Sorry, that’s inelegance on my part – the industrial printer has been supplied SINCE then. Amended now – apologies for any confusion.
Grand, so. Sounded super-dodgy in its original form :-)
He would have saved Wood Printcraft
If he’d given them his workload,and perhaps he would have had more time
do what he was paid for.
I wonder what model pf printer these toners are for. I suspect the dail is being charged a premium. Ill bet the private sector could get them cheaper, that should be part of the story….
The people who claim they try defend the interests of the ‘ordinary people’. I don’t know any ‘ordinary’ person who spends 50k on ink, just so that he can make his face seen.
It’s ironic that no shinners are on today to defend this clown. You couldn’t get a word in here yesterday when they were defending people’s reaction to the latest polls.
Maybe there all at the ink laundering plant in Monaghan?
Absolutely, the silence speaks volumes. Most of them haven’t a clue. They’re waiting for the party line to come out. You can be guaranteed the Sinn Fein spin machine is in overdrive. They’ll be briefing all the foot soldiers at a meeting this evening.
He must have been printing An Phoblacht.
Thats disgusting and i really hope Sinn Fein take serious action
If there is enough ink in €50,000 worth of cartidges to print approximately 2 1/4 million A4 pages, and if one printer works day and night every day to print a page every 3 seconds, (maths is not my strong point, somene else take this up, will you?) then I calculate that one printer would need 4 years and three months + to use all that ink.
Not allowing for time to change cartridges, have a snooze, eat your brekkie, brush your teeth etc.
If Deputy O’ Snodaigh had 3 printers working 40 hours a week each it would take him 5 years + to use all that ink.
At €50,000 and 2,250,000 printed sheets, though, I think the above figures are very conservative.
What did he do with all that ink? Bathe in it?
Maybe he gave some to the banks, which they could use to make explosive money markers, in case his ex-pals in the ex-IRA came by to make some unauthorised withdrawals with their Kalshnikovs.
Plus the cost of the paper. Who paid for that?
2.25 million sheets of paper, if he could lower himself to print on rock bottom quality paper, would come in at around €12,000. Up the paper quality and it could be as much as twice that.
Also you made no account of the time to sort out paper jams…. can you just imagine how many paper jams there would be with such busy, busy printers?? Write in a solid week or two for jam unblocking there I’d say.
Where are all the used cartridges?
Don’t look at me. In an unrelated story…fancy sone cheap toners.
I though his claim that it wasn’t electioneering was the most bizarre. Of course distributing loads of flyers to your electorate is an attempt to influence the way they vote in future is therefore electioneering. Another Irish gombeen politician.
He always was a gombeen
Its a bit of a pain in the backside hearing the “industrial wage” line trotted out by Sinn Fein as if they are doing the country a huge favour financially. There not. Their full wage is the same as the other TDs. They draw it down in full, and donate the remainder to the party. They claim their expenses just as much as other TDs, as seen here, which would bring their wage packet up a hefty sum all the same. Donating to their party isn’t benefiting the states coffers. Its benefiting the Sinn Fein party.
Ink isn’t cheap and neither is paper to be printing on. Its an absolute disgrace that he is using our money to pay for their letters and leaflets at such an alarming level. No TD, regardless of party, should be allowed abuse the fund this much. Its a bit rich getting a leaflet objecting to the cuts and taxs yet they are all on the gravy train themselves, and this particular bill is 1.5 the industrial wage for chirst sake. Sinn Fein TDs start on a lower wage scale but make up for the donation to their party by jumping on the expenses gravy train.
Its time people got real thinking Sinn Fein are any better.
It would work out much cheaper to get them printed professionally and would be good for the economy and jobs.
That’s right Kevin, I’m amazed that they have convinced a % of the population that they are only taking the nat ind wage – when they are actually receiving the same as all TDs. What they do with their big fat pay cheques is irrelevant, they cost the tax payers as much as the rest of the TDs.
Has anyone checked to see if he has a shop up on eBay?
Ha ha.
Probably selling them on EBay , to fund the ’cause’ ! !
Thankfully, thats small compared to the 70 million that will be wasted in the next few months as Ireland takes over the EU presidency for 6 months!
See: http://www.joe.ie/news-politics/current-affairs/is-the-eu-presidency-really-worth-e70m-to-ireland-0021162-1
“A report in the Sunday Times suggests that the Irish Government has allocated €25m in spending for this year, in order to ‘prepare’ for the presidency, and €35m for 2013, but expects the total to be in excess of €70m.”
Madness!
I read the report in the Times and they mention that others states have done it for FAR less – yet we are going on a spending spree while taking on the role!
Madness heaped upon more daily madness by our governments!
look if all 166 TDs were to use thd same amount of ink as that then we would be spending €27-5 million times 166 pa. there is no justification for this
O’ I’m certainly not arguing with you – all these things do indeed add up!
I’d be interested in finding out if €130 is the price the government should be paying for each cartridge. Sounds very expensive.
Exactly!
€130 for each one?
Something does not seem right here!
…And remember that buying in such bulk is again, supposed to be even cheaper – if the supplier wants the business and chooses to to come to a equal comfortable negotiated price!
ha – nice attempt at misdirection! but not working!
Off topic, but €130 sounds cheap for laser toner. Our office laser costs €205 ex VAT per toner, per color (4 each). All depends on the laser printer, but normally are way more expensive than inkjets.
We outsource anything over 100 prints as professional printers are way cheaper.
to be fair the only positive i can see here is that someone saw what he was doing here and changed the rules to stop him! no excuse for spending 50k of our money on his nonsense but better than if he was doing it still!
If I used €50k worth of print supplies or stationary at work for personal means I’d be fired and would probably have criminal charges brought against me. Why should it be different if this is done with state assets?
You’d imagine you’d also get fired for “losing” 3.5 billion…..wouldn’t you?
I wonder if he recycled the empty cartridges?? One way to solve this nonsense would be issue TDs with 3 packs of cartridges at start of season, and only when they hand an empty one back, they get a replacement. Most ink-jet printers would need to be going leather for hell to produce that amount of literature – who paid for the paper?? Also, how many actual printers did he go through?? I know if you use a printer anyway “heavy duty” it dies after a reasonably short period! Id say there is more to this story than meets the eye lol. Anyone check gumtree.ie or donedeal.ie to see if anyone in Dublin selling large quantities of ink cartridges as a “sideline” lol.
Jon, no offense, but WTF are they getting ANY ink. They keep reminding us that all their tax free expenses are for running their constituency offices.
How crazy does it have to get
i’d love to know if he claimed printing expenses on top of it all!
It looks excessive because it is. Worse still he knew it wasn’t economical yet continued, and the printers used/amount printed doesn’t add up. Shocking amount spent on ink. Ugh…politicians
A disgraceful attack on Aengus O’Snodaigh! He only took the average industrial toner allowance.
It’s a bit like the average industrial wage fallacy that SF have indulged in for years.
They may well on paper at least, take home the average industrial wage, but the rest is still drawn down, and ends up in party coffers. Of course they do have their expenses to fall back on.
Even when they don’t attend the parliament in the first place-as with Westminster, where they refused to take up their seats, and still claimed over half a million pounds in second home allowances alone.
At least these houses were all pyrite-free houses. Yes, one can say without fear of contradiction, they were all safe houses.
Yeah, it’s something that people don’t realise, SF cost the taxpayer the same amount of money while taking “only the average industrial wage”…
I’m a Declan’s man myself.
How could it be possible that a TD is entitled to use Dail supplied printing ink for political activities that take place off campus.
It is reasonable and straightforward to see a situation where printing inks would be supplied by the House for work undertaken within its precincts but the systematic removal of industrial quantities over a two year period by this individual makes the entire matter sound more like misappropriation .
The taxpayer should not be expected to pick up the tab for Sinn Feins Constituency costs and this matter makes Ivor Callelys mileage expenses look quit reasonable!
Mr O’Snodaigh should be asked if all these cartridges are now verifiably put beyond use!
Sinn Fein specialise in soundbite politics that appeal to the ‘tell me what I want to hear and don’t bore me with the facts’ brigade. God help our poor batter and bruised country if the ever got into power. They’d finish us off completely. That’s why I delight that this has come to light. It shows that despite their holier than thou rhetoric that they are just as bad as the rest of them.
“But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”
― Frédéric Bastiat, The Law
Either way…. If Sinn Fein are to be given credibility as to them being able to drive Ireland out of a recession when they demonstrate the most recklessness in commercial terms then I think it highlights they are a shower of wasters, literally.
So what do they get these big wars of cash for??
Ridiculous. They should be made buy these cartridges themselves…at least!
Politics & ticians are all the bloody same!
FF’s new slogan against SF: “Even Bertie wasn’t that thick.”
Sounds like bullshit to me Angus. And if you were using an office laser or inkjet printer/printers which as others have indicated then you are either an idiot or a shyster. And I gave Sinn Fein a reasonable vote in the recent election….sigh
Reada is quiet!!! For once!!!
If he spent this amount of time printing leaflets informing people what he was doing in the Dáil all he could possibly print would be ‘I spend my time printing leaflets’
Ahahahaha. Very good :)
The atitude by the shinners is a disgrace.
Why can’t he apologise & repay back the money.
The Healy Raes did – why would we accept lower standards from the shinners?
Pierce Doherty is very upset. ya see, he thought he was the “poster boy”…
Let’s start asking reasonable questions such as the following;
Did O’Snodaigh physically remove these cartridges from Dail Eireann himself?
We’re they packaged or secreted on his person or placed in his briefcase to avoid detection?
Did he instruct anyone else such as a Sinn Fein employee to remove them?
Where precisely is the office at which this printing was carried out?
Were Dail printers also used at this address?
If so were they removed from Dail Eireann with permission?
If so could we be supplied with the name of……etc etc etc
How are the foregoing question any different to those that Sinn Fein would ask of Fine Gael or Labour or Fianna Fail if the roles were reversed. Isn’t it time for them to start behaving like a political Party?
Has he never heard of email? He essentially spent €50,000 of the publics money on putting rubbish into the public’s letter boxes.
Same gene pool as Ivor Callely etc etc
I hope the gardai look into it and if it is fraud or theft that he is prosecuted,
To Quote Jim Royle………………….. prolific leafleter my arse
Oh dear now ye know what the rest of us knew already. Sinn Fein are just as corrupt as.the rest of them. Id rather see Fianna fail in charge than these monkeys.
No, I wouldn’t go that far :)
His printers should be seized and the “count” examined , to prove that he , along with the rest of the Sinn Fein party are just pure liars ! !
People of Ireland – wake up – they are trying to deceive us .
Not supporting FF , but as Michael Martin asked , “what is it the Sinn Fein obsession with printing ?”. – I think we know now what o snodaig was really at ! ! !
Nothing as annoying as leaflets thru the door either.
Perhaps he was putting toners through the door instead of leaflets. These Shinners are not the brightest.
“would have been known as the most prolific leafleters in the country”
Never heard of him.
I want the taxes back that were spent on this, he can keep his leaflet.
Nobody told him that these cartridges don’t go BANG
What do you call a laser printer that can print enough pages to use 434 toner cartridges and not be replaced? Non-existent.
The Oireachtas has in house printers for TDs to use to print literature and flyers. This guy was straight out stroking.
Jerry,
I would say it was more straight forward than that. I would guess that there are a host of printers in constituency offices around the country which take the same cartridges as the printer in Mr O’Snodaigh’s Leinster House Office. This would fit with the mode of operation that Sinn Fein use for everything. All expenses, salaries etc that can be claimed are donated to Sinn Fein and then somehow the representatives of Sinn Fein act as virtual employees of Sinn Fein being paid the average industrial wage. The whole thing is a scam and a well oiled and powerful propaganda machine. You may be sure that these cartridges were put to good use and that the only use Mr O’Snodaigh’s father would have got out of these cartridges would have been in the running of the Sinn Fein propaganda machine. Sinn Fein take care of their own whether it means getting them elected or, when a colleague is starting off, getting that colleague a suit and sticking them in the parliamentary office until they in turn get elected and return the favour to the party.
I would hope this is the case since then at least one could hope that the paper all this ink was printed on might have come from some other source but I guess there were reams of paper also being redirected to Sinn Fein to be distributed throughout the country too.
PS Before anyone says that other parties are at the same thing – of course they are, but not to the same extent and anyway it is not an excuse. Sinn Fein are the best at it. The party machine is amazing and unfortunately for them in this situation they were just too efficient at fleecing the Oireachtas – result: O’Snodaigh gets caught.
Where did the paper come from?
This is disappointing to say the least ….
No excuse really .
They can not say one thing and do another …
They must be open with the electorate from word one .
We have had enough of dirty politics for too long now
and if SF want in they must change ….
“Unionists and partitionists have been stealing our ink for far too long.”
The original excuse which the SF press office were going to use.
Quote from article, “Ó Snodaigh added that because Sinn Féin had a far smaller Dáil representation at the time the toner cartridges were received, it did not get priority access to the printing presses in Leinster House” Just as well or we’d be looking for a second bailout
Sorry Tom I would. People have no idea of the hipocracy of this party. They are populist & that is all they have to offer.
I agree Michael, but Buf not back to FF
LOL
He should have toned it down a bit. He’s really blotted his copybook now. He’ll be in ribbons over it. *gets coat*
I was thinking of doinga painting using some of the ink….on canvass. (OK, not as good as your puns. :))
Fianna Fáiler asking a Shinner to come clean on issue of ethics and standards in public office.
You just couldn’t make it up!
Do you happen to know where I could get a mobile phone licence?
On a quick aside, but as a seasoned leaflet dropper, I always respect the “no leaflets” notices on dooors. I reckon about 20% of houses in Dub Central have them. Also for security reasons, it can be very difficult to access apartments. So assuming that SF respect the “no leaflets” signs and that they don’t break into appartment complexes, this amount of ink means that many houses got leaflets every single day….if Deputy O’Snodaigh is to be believed?
337 leaflets per constituency household according to some calculations. That means every single household got a leaflet every second night for two years.
Yeah, right.
SF condoned violence, Warrington, Enniskillen, City of London, Osnabruck, Don Tidy, Warrenpoint, Jean McConville, Jerry McCabe, the Columbia three…
…and ink cartridges.
Oh wise up.
You threw the same nonsense at me before Tom, you used assumptions on me that once my views were contrary to yours I was a shinner and introduced your bullet and bombs card, it displays your shortsightedness in political debate and your skill in seeking plaudits from people unable to find any harm in FG’s FF policies.
I noticed how sparse the FG comments were on the topic about children lying on hospital trolleys, how scarce the replies to TD’s expenses, not much on the thread about Enda giving his buddy an exorbitant pay rise in times of austerity and cuts either, yet you clap yourself on the back with comments about murders and bombings that any sane person would find repulsive with no relevance to the thread being discussed.
I’m no shinner, i condemn every act of violence perpetrated by any grouping or persons like any rational sane person would but i find your constant harking back to a repugnant time in our history just to receive thumbs up distasteful and utterly bullshit.
Get over yourself. I was pointing out the irony.
No, you are displaying once again your arrogance and smugness, you’re beloved FG are in power now and in your eyes they can do no wrong and anyone who disagrees with FG’s FF polices are by your definition a shinner and you gleefully indulge in dragging up heinous crimes to bolster your comments.
As I said, and although this is not confined to you, there is never much FG input into the numerous threads posted on the journal concerning FG’s disastrous health cuts and the effect it has on people in this country, you bide your time waiting for someone else not connected to your continuity FF party to be caught screwing the country and then issue your displeasure and if it happens to be SF then all the better for you.
It’s a low point when you have to bring murder victims and bombing outrages into 99% of your comments to reinforce your derision of anyone.
Hurl abuse all you want. This is about SF, no one else.
Hurl abuse?
Read the comments back over Tom and you’ll see that no abuse is contained, I pointed out your arrogance in dealing with issues regarding SF and your holier than thou attitude.
Yeah…SF TD gets caught taking 50k worth of toner, treats the taxpayer lije muppets…and you want to blame a FG member for the whole episode because he outsmarted you? Get real.
This is SFs problem.
Tonergate, papergate, A###holegate ,i think, suits best. It should be a criminal offence for any public servant, politician or otherwise to waste tax payers money.
But you felt the need to reply to him… and he was right and you weren’t? LOL!
A few years back we reckoned it would take 90 man days to drop every single household in Dublin Central. Given that the constituency is not only the same size but has roughly the same density, it would take about the same time.
To use up that amount of ink you would need about forty full time leaflet droppers every single day.
Plausible?
I wonder do Leinster house keep a tab on the bog roll as well :)
Sinn Féin supporter, and I find it wrong to spend this much on printing. I wonder if there is a list of the printing costs of every TD available for comparison purposes, as a local TD here of another party often sends leaflets here through the Dáil – so I don’t think Ó Snodaigh is the only one guilty of this.
Ó Snodaigh certainly has questions hanging over his head about this matter but you are right.
I’m very sure there is a great deal of others doing similar – with similar claims.
Will the media name them too – and will the public exercise such irateness towards a FG, Labour or FF person doing same?
I again suspect that there is a few that will just use this excuse to gave a go at SF (not without possible justification sometimes) and conveniently NOT have a go at the rest or conveniently not ask the question “Who else is doing same!
Not only do SF supports come out in force but FF, FG and Labour ones do too also
…And at present FF have much to lose so expect every trick in the book – and they know ALL the tricks and more!
…They wrote the book for decades!
good point Seán, all TDs are allowed a certain amount of Dail post and stamps for their constituency work and to answer peoples questions etc, the rest I assume comes out of their massive expenses.
As the day goes on he is starting to sound like Bertie. Dddddddddddd every second word and delusional with the excuses. Bertie, Aongus and Ivor. What a collection !
Joking aside, I actually thought he sounded very like Roddy Molloy when answering questions on Morning Ireland.
There are a number of scandals here:
The price of a cartridge
The apparent purloining
The fact that they sat for 76 days in a year which would consist of around 220 working days.
Damocles why are you talking about cartridges ??? it was toner, which can range from €20 to €200+ depending on the printer
Tom, Toner comes in cartridges you don’t buy it loose.
It’s powder, not the standard ink cartridges you are refering to, Only letting you know :-l
A minor point but, please, for the love of god and my sanity, stop putting gate in every political story… Otherwise great job guys.
Haha I think it’s hilarious the way people do it. It’s not as if the original Watergate was a scandal about water so it’s kind of tongue in cheek.
Yeah, I agree. From now on, unless the scandal involves millions or results in a sacking, no gate suffix please. Cheapens the use.
Clichégate!!
This cannot be explained and it has to be paid back. I suspect this is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s just typical of Sinn Fein and the ULA. Let someone else pay because i’m certainly not paying. Ask them where is the money going to come from and you are met with a deafening silence. He took 50,000 euros worth in two years and only 3,000 euros worth since the charges came in and he’s not going to pay his bill for them either. UNREAL. He should be kicked out of the Dail and pursued for the money plus interest!
this is tabloid stuff guys not real news
Was the Ivor Callely invoice story not real news then? Of course this is real news. Open your eyes.
James, what?
A Sinn Fein TD bills the taxpayer for €50,000 worth of ink cartridge over two years whilst simultaneously objecting to every cut and new taxes?
bigger fish guys,its pennies in a pond.
plus there kinda entitled to expenses for office equipment and stuff its part of the job
says the story was in the daily mail…enough said! LOL
Don’t know what world you live in, James, but to me €50,000 is not pennies.
Stick to reading An Phoblacht then James
Your legislator is caught stealing and you say it’s not news?
500 quid a week on ink cartridges for 2 years. . . . .
Shinner TDs take the average industrial (so they say).
500 p.w. wouldn’t be a million miles off that amount.
Loathe as I am to ever be found on the side of the Mail, I have to say I smell either a big dirty rat, or a big stupid TD.
‘Paipear’ O Snodaigh, he never refused ink
a lot of people turned to sf and would turn to sf in another election ,
but this story regarding the cartridges (cough) , only goes to show , when push comes to shove ,
sf , ff ,fg, lab etc are all the fucking same , they are in it for themselves to suck as much off our tax money as possible ,
if they where so serious about fixing the country ,then politicans from all sides would not in the national interest claim any expenses , but as we have seen this is simply not the case ,
Adams 50k in expenses in 12months ,
quinn claiming over 6,000eur for supposedly travelling 2800km’s (cough cough)
I travel 900km’s a week , it costs me 78eur (including toll), so how can he claim so fucking much ITS ONE BIG FUCKING JOKE ,AT OUR EXPENSE
All i can say is we must unite and rise about against this evil evil system
Honest to goodness, this sort of shit is enough to wear the patients of a saint
The Garda need to get involved as this is theft of taxpayers money. The party involved is irrelevant as whoever behaves like they have a right to abuse the priveliged position they hold whether they are Labour, Fianna Fail or any other party should be charged and jailed. If joe blogs steals 20 € from the local shop he is charged so let the Garda do their job. Has anybody reported it to the Garda? Does somebody need to report it? Or will they just investigate?
Slow news day.
You’re clearly out of touch
Ho much did he spend on paper?
Nothing Paul, How much did the tax payer spend on paper ?
He was probably printing off extra copies of An Phoblacht!
You’d wonder why this wasn’t taken out of the Leaders Allowance afforded to Sinn Fein, considering that this is one of the expenses allowed. Or even from the portion of “donated” wages that Sinn Fein elected members give back to their party to “improve Constituency Services” which you’d imagine would be a category that informative leaflets to constituents would come under…
Aengus – shouldn’t that be Xerox OSnodaigh !
LOL
Gawd bless The Mail for putting this across its front page today – by coincidence of course when just a few days ago, a poll showed that SF was now even more popular with the public!
Coincidental timing? Himmmmmmm…. Me thinks not!
And…… grow up
Great, well thought out formulated reply!
Sad.
Well it deserves to be a headline, Since we are constantly being told about how different Sinn Fein are. €55,000 for toner + on top of that Paper + an indivdual to look after it. Even if he is the most prolific leafleter in the country should Sinn Fein not be picking up the tab. So what this actually shows is that Aengus Ó Snodaigh spends his time in the Dail printing leaflets to tell us all about the great work he is doing in the Dail. They are no different, snouts in the trough, along with the others, Claim they draw they average working wage, But I do believe the take all their wage and the donate some back to sinn fein coffers to keep the propoganda wheel turning. I see them as worse than the others, simply because the make this false claim to be different. Talk is Cheap
So here’s what we’ll do, says Gerry: ‘we’ll only take the average industrial wage and we’ll take the rest in cartridges.’ Jaysus, boss, says Aengus, ‘I thought we’d given up all that!’
So, let me get this straight … This TD claims that he has been using printing cartridges to print leaflets to disseminate literature about the childrens hospital, and other public cncerns. The Government has been paying 130 euro a cartridge to whoever the supplier is, where the normal Joe blogs on the street pays about 10-15 euros max. I am damn sure the TD did not know the Government were paying 130 euro a cartridge. Did any of you know???
To me, it sounds like the story should be about how much we the Tax payer are being fleeced in printing expenses in the Dail. How much are we paying for pens, paper etc. If we were paying the normal price for Toner, then this bloody story would never have arisen, as the toner expenses would have amounted to 2.5k per year. Is anyone asking the Gardai to investigate the extortionate prices we are paying for stationary? How come no-one has challenged this in the thread? Instead, we have the Usual FF/FG/Labour supporters on here protraying shock and dismay at ho SF have used printer Toner, all the while their Leaders are literally putting Tax Payers money into their bank accounts without as much as a whinge about it from their party faithful. How much did Enda Kenny pay himself extra in un-vouched expenses since he became leader of FG? 50k per year Tax-Free (and thats 100k per year to the average PAYE worker), on top of his normal expenses, on top of his TD slaary, on top of his ministerial pension, on top of his vouched expenses?????? Gilmore, Bruton???? And lets not start on the FFailures.
If it was a FF/FG/LAB politician behind this you’d be shouting ‘corruption!’ at the top of your lungs!
“It’s OK when SF does it” should be their campaign slogan…
Sean, FF/FG/Labour pay money straight into their bank accounts … They make no bones abou it…
Unless this SF TD has a printing business, i cannot see how in hells name, he is personally profiting from this effort. That is the major difference between the parties, from what i see. And instead of attacking why the Government sees fit to pay 130 euro for a 10 euro cartridge, sticks to high heavens to me. I would really like to underrstand what we the tax-pyers pay for regular stationary (paper, paper clips, pens etc). Who gets the stationary contracts, and where the contracts are tendered. I smell a fantastic opportunity to start a new busniness selling stationary to the Government, saving the Tax payers millions, and making myself a large fortune in the process. It all smells to high heavens, and how the story broke in the week that SF takes a clear lead over Labour and FF stinks to me also. Open your eyes.
Agreed cal, just to add that I am in no way a sf supporter and highly unlikely that I ever will be and although o’snodaigh’s actions are dubious and absolutely should be questioned, but considering the momentus gains sf have made it does look like there is possibly some political skullduggery going on (sorry for using that word but couldnt think of another as appropriate).
Apparently these cartridges print 7500 copies each. Like to see you get that from a 15 quid toner from Tesco. What do SF TDs do with the money (that is over and above the €32k) they don’t take as income? Why didn’t they use that for constituency work?
Wider issue. Seems al parties mis-use public money in their efforts to keep in the public eye to get re-elected…
On the price of cartridges, if you read the article you will see it was toner not standard cartridges, toner prices range from €20 to €200+ depending on your type of printer, So that puts an end to your distracting from Sinn Feins blatant abuse of the system
Sinn Fein’s mantra is ‘The past is behind us. It’s time to forget about it and move forward’. Does that mean we should forget what FF did to the country as well and give them another chance? Or does this selective amnesia only apply to Sinn Fein?
Aengus O’Snodaigh should be suspended, on full cartridge allowance, pending an investigation.
What are ye all so het up about??!! FFS all the politicians are at it..The only reason this was made public was because SF are rising in the polls and the criminals that are running the country and the criminals that ran it into the ground in the first place can’t have that happening..
What if There were no printer cartridges
Just invoices ?
This is why people do not trust politicians…..
Doing stupid things . Surely there is a process one goes through
to do photocopying or an allowance available for such out lays.
He said it was for leafletting his area ….
Maybe his party should have subsidised this ….
Disappointing !!!
337 leaflets per household in 2 years at the rate he used ink.
Tom
Hi . You are good at maths :)
Senan Maloney’s figures Eileen.
He was implying that it simply was not a credible excuse.
That should make you happy so Tom :)
That he got found out? I view it as a mere inevitability Eileen.
He was stockpiling for the don’t register, don’t pay malarkey
David
Ha ha ! You made a funny . I like that . You see it is always better to
have a sense of humor …Nice one . Have you heard ? Since You brought
up the Campaign against the household and water Tax . One Million six
hundred and seventy six thousand six hundred and thirty five = 1,676,635
people have NOT registered to pay that household tax .Can you imagine ???
Fantastic , fantastic. !That is 92% Have not registered … Well Good night now :)
Relax Eileen. Tis only February. Amazing how easily led people like you are when you are told what you want to hear. Use your own mind for a change Eileen. ;-)
David
I have said before and I will say it again . I voted for FG and Labour in the last General election .
I am so disappointed by the outright lies and Uturns they have done and the lack of respect our
government have shown us I will never vote for them again.
I do not know yet who I would vote for but likely Independents ULA and or SF …
It will be a while yet til the next election.
Fool me once, shame on you !
Fool me twice , shame on me !
i heard he is occasionally the 4th member of the blue man group.
Wow that’s some amount of toner. Am I to assume now that Dell printers “eat” toner. Dell surely can’t be impressed with this article.
Eileen,
I sense you think you’ve evaded the question by laughing it off and replying with a smart (and I used that term loosely) answer.
Your responses speak volumes.
Not at all Tom .
You are welcome :)
I am only in the ha’penny place when it comes to your own answers .
Then again The name Neville is renowned = well known :)
Answers which aren’t “smart” are snide.
Your responses on this matter show your true colours. Have a good evening.
Tom
Now you are just that ‘
You Too :)
LOLOLOL FF complaining that someone wasted money !!!!!!!!!! FFS ! very last one of the fecking politicans are as bad as each other !!
Looks like Joe Duffy and the Evening Herald are worried about Sinn Feins rise in popularity ……….
More worried about their….ability to leaflet drop every constituency home every two days….did they have Usain Bolt’s entire family dropping leaflets?
Who cares what overpaid pricks like joe duffy thinks
Sorry Sean, read your comment arseways.
i see what you were getting at :)
The original article says more about british tabloid Daily Mail criteria for quality reporting
With all the problems Ireland is facing they chose to focus on how much ink is used for printing by an individual TD.
But a bit of nationalist bashing always goes down well from some quarters.
Ah I was waiting for someone to come along and have a whinge purely because it was the Mail that broke the story. Would you be saying the same thing if it was a Blueshirt who had taken those cartridges? Yeah, I didn’t think so. The fact is O Snodaigh took the public for a bunch of fools and he got found out. It doesn’t matter who got this information, the important thing is that it’s now out there.
Maybe aengus should print a White paper on controversy ..
I think the song that suits this story is Springsteen’s “Murder In(k)corporated.”
Heh, did you make that one up yourself?
does anyone else notice that when Tom gives a red thumb , he gives it in triplicate !
care to explain Tom.
Yes, quite proud of it. Witty.
Maybe FG could use Hall and Oates song – “Out Of Touch”…?
Apparently, If all the ink cartridges were laid end to end they would just about reach all the way around ‘gone but not forgotten ‘ Mary Harney.
If they were all sold they would match enda kennys expenses for 11 months.
He should send a letter of apology to every citizen of Ireland
You’d print a Saturday edition of the Irish Examiner with all them cartridges ,
even though they saved on Presidential twitter. What other use have they for a colour printer?
I hope the cartridges are being kept for forensic examination.
aengus must take us all for mugs if he thinks he can get away with this.
I bet they all ended up on ebay.
the system shouldn’t allow such abuse, where were the civil servants?
this wouldn’t happen in the private sector
What wouldn’t happen?
I still can’t believe what a moran this guy is!!
I didn’t Think that TDS were allowed to steal from the Dial” well Clearly this is the Case” because I haven’t Heard Enda Saying To Sinn Fein Aengus Ó Snodaigh” Hey you are Fired” Stealing is a Crime” no matter what you say and it is punishable by Law” so Garda Get and Do your Jobs Arrest This man” why should he be any different” he Commit a Crime” therefore you pay for the Crime” Robbers the lot!
Rita Cahill
Fair play the Daily Mail and the journal, they have given all FG/Labour apologists a chance to air their views on expenses seeing as they were strangely mute on other expenses threads involving FG/Labour.
Spending so much on ink cartridges is an abomination and an abuse of privilege and shows another example of the disconnect between them in the Dail and the rest of us………….. anyway, maybe he’ll be arrested 24 hours before our government gives away another stack of billions to bondholders next month, seems to be the done thing.
It is obvious to anyone with a head on their shoulders
that the Gov managed this announcement about O Snodaigh
to coincide with the governments announcement about the
Referendum. . . Let them all have their day Dermot , at least
we will have our say .
Come March when they hand over the full amount to the bondholders and there’s still sick children lying on hospital trollies the FG sycophants will still be mentioning this, they need any sort of news to deflect away from their failings.
Spent cartridges!
Viking direct have it ink for him lol….
Jesus!he really shot himself in the foot this time,lucky there’s no shortage of cartridges.
Dear God is this what the electorate are reduced to?scrapping and rallying the party hacks to attack legitimate use of toner cartridges given freely and legitimately to all TDS??. As a SF voter, I for one recieve many leaflets on local issues which stand to affect my community, more often than not these leaflets carry news which will not be found in my local newspapers, or on RTE, or radio. Many marginalised families rely on constituency services in my area and Sinn Féin are always to the fore in keeping us abreast of Gov cuts, local crimes, local resources, and often assist other community groups in their campaigns. I can state that yes on occasion especially in times of State crisis and times when our so called FF Gov kept us in the dark my local SF reps leafleted my estate weekly. Our TDs serve our constituencies and they are given resources from LH by the Gov of the day to service their offices. Its also worth noting that at election times our own leaflets were printed locally by a local printer with no affiliation to SF. It saddens me to see old news stories garner so much feedback when our FG/Lab coalition handed over billions to the troika, are cahrging us for owning our homes, are slashing our public services and blatantly fritter public expenses on appointing advisors et al even when to do so breaches their own pay ceilings. Pity the electorate arent so vocal when corruption and cronyism rear their heads daily and have done for decades of successive corruption all at the expense of us the taxpayer. If we are serious about tackling such issues lets not pander to such myopic views, and petty party politics
This…is…ridiculous. How could anyone, find the time (when they’re meant to be working) to rifle through so much ink? He definitely backhanded them to someone. Good to see he was pulled up on this. He looks like a complete and utter moron now.
“Nobody ever raised with me, in Leinster House, the cost of it or that it was excessive, or anything else.”
Aha, no-one told you. So that must make it OK. Isn’t this the sort of excuse we’ve heard about and laughed at (or cried at) in the past?
Criminals ya, a much maligned word, someone with a recorded criminal conviction against him/her, now where in the dail chamber do you think we should look for criminals, god help us if the likes get into power.
Maybe Phoebe from friends could sell toner to the Government and Sinn Féin!
How could you Mr Adams, all those trees you are so fond of hugging! Perhaps it’s invisible ink for the memoires or their past evil deeds: after all, they are sworn to silence. Or have they run out of Northern Banknotes?
Maybe he has a dr…ink….problem? Typical SF. Using all these cartridges.
i think this flute will find his mind changed for him in the coming days!! the fucking cheek of him!! a republican MY HOLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I thought Sinn Fein had decomissioned all their cartridges……
Maybe it was an accounting error, if it was he’ll be getting a top job in Europe soon.
without a printer and cartridge nowadays anywhere, even jagerco not print.
Is it safe? Well, he says it is. They monitor his dosage levels and all that. Sometimes they’re too high, and he’s not allowed to dive. That’s why we live out in the middle of nowhere.
http://www.cheapinkcartridges4u.co.uk/
Elrat your not the only one who listens to Liveline we heard Duffy come up with that one earlier, get your own material……
have your say