The USI president's response raises a number of issues:

1) Why is USI paying the insurance on a privately owned vehicle? Why did this decision not go to USI's officer board or USI National Council? Is this not in contravention of USI's own constitution?

2) If Byrne's expenses were well known, why did members of USI contacted by The Irish Times express surprise at them?

3) Byrne claimed £348 in mileage expenses over the period October 12th to 21st, 1996, alone. No one is suggesting that Byrne should cycle to colleges, but previous practice was for USI officers to use public transport, or simply to claim petrol, in order to minimise expenses.

4) The USI president does not clarify the division of expenses among other officers on a number of expense claims. For example, there is no indication in the expenses claim for conferences in Britain and the Netherlands (March 20th to 27th, 1997) that Byrne is claiming for any officer other than himself. In addition, given that the other officer who accompanied Byrne to the EISIP conference in the Netherlands had his expenses paid by the organising committee of the conference, on what exactly was the £320 in question spent?

5) The main "clarifications" omitted from the article were Byrne's justification for his expenses on the grounds that his wages were "sh**e" and his assertion that other USI officers claimed more expenses than he did.

6) 6) I would be grateful if Byrne could forward to me a list of his supporters "in the field of education" so that their support for him can be registered publicly.