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EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARIAN MARIAN Harkin has criticised the lack of detail in a report which claimed that Irish MEPs spent less time – and asked fewer questions – in parliament last year than during 2011.
The Independent MEP strongly condemned the European Movement’s data on her and her colleagues’ attendance and question records, calling the report “misleading” and “unforgivable”.
Speaking to Karen Coleman from radioep.ie, Harkin explained that her office had made the decision to reduce the number of questions asked because of the “astronomical” costs to European taxpayers.
“What they didn’t say and what they should have said is that every single question we put down here in this parliament costs taxpayers across Europe – and in Ireland – somewhere between €800 and €1,400 – per question,” she said, adding that every question and answer has to be translated into the 22 official languages of the EU.
She claimed the cost to Europe is between €35 million and €80 million annually.
“Certainly in my office, once we discovered this, we said, ‘We’ll send emails, we’ll make phone calls, we’ll write letters’.”
Commenting on the poor attendance record, Harkin noted that Fianna Fáil MEP Brian Crowley has been ill and unable to sit in sessions.
Ireland currently has 12 MEPs with an attendance record of 83 per cent for plenary sessions in 2012 – a decrease of 2 per cent on 2011. Between them, they raised 455 Parliamentary Questions, a drop from 683 in the previous 12 months.
The European Commission’s response time for questions can be up to six weeks.
Irish MEPs made 365 speeches in parliament, a slight decrease in the year.
Looks like il be watching a load of ads
They will be loading them on now and making you wait a minute before they clear.
Just get the ad blocker extension on chrome! It’s free!
Some websites have managed to work around the ad blocker such as TV3 Player so I wonder will YouTube do the same, hopefully not.
I honestly didn’t realise YouTube had ads until I started watching it on my mobile. I’d downloaded ad blocker on my laptop years ago so it came as quite the surprise.
If it came to it, I would happily give up my TV subscription and TV licence and just pay Youtube instead. They deserve it at least. Sky is a bad joke and RTE is the pits.
not to be confused with Red Tube
whats that?
pull the other one Ken….
Pretty sure he is pulling on something
The beginning of the end for you tube, And the chance for someone to set up “New Tube”.
Not sure Google have thought the pricing through. Can’t see many people willing to pay a score a month for Google play music and YouTube. Expect to see a sharp rise in piracy again.
This will be the end of YouTube. The whole reason it became popular was because people could freely be creative and how others their talents.
Adsense and vloggers ruined that. People will not pay to watch that crap that currently dominates YouTube
Just get extensions on your browser, I’m sure there’s ways around it.. 10$ a month is madness.. Can’t see it going anywhere
That works out at € 8.81 over here.
Netflix is better value.
Time for a Continuity YouTube me thinks
Ads it is so…
Adblock plus on Laptop & AdAway on rooted phone. I dont see any Ads.
I take it they’re adopting the Netflix/Spotify model. But (for me anyway), paying to skip ads is not something worth paying for. I mute the ad and do something else while I wait. When you add up all those 30 seconds for the year (excluding the ads you can’t skip, you know the ones), that’s a lot of time I spent being somewhat productive. The YouTubers get their money from showing ads cos I let it run and I didn’t spend money. Crisis averted.
Would it be considered a crime to shoot pewdiepie?
Only if you blog it.
$10 a month. how about no….
$10 a month is nuts when they give content creators .000000001 of a cent of that . At least netflix is financing new content and shows.
I said this was going to happen due to ad blocker and i got argued with and red thumbed and told this wasn’t going happen. Now we all know google is looking for extra money but they have the excuse they need.
Google services will start blocking IP’s and system with adblocker installed and when google do it everyone will follow. Law decided that ad blocker can block content so inturn so can google .
have your say