Madam, - The Financial Timesrecently carried an article on British civil servants' personal use of air miles (or frequent flyer points) obtained on official travel, arguing that "the taxpayers paid for the original flights, and any air miles should go towards reducing the cost of further official trips".
In Australia, neither civil servants nor members of parliament can use such air miles for personal flights, while in Germany, in 2002, two politicians resigned after using such air miles for personal travel.
It should be the same in Ireland, but there is no Government policy on this matter. Air miles collected by Government and State representatives while on official business remain their personal property to dispose of how they like. So, it would seem that the taxpayer is not only paying for the cost of such travel, and then the carbon offsets for such flights, but also paying for personal flights (presumably with no carbon offsets) for government and public officials and their families at a later date.
The Minister for Finance should consider making air miles a benefit-in-kind taxation; or else the State's travel procurement policy needs to be changed to make the air miles the property of the State for use on state business only. - Yours, etc,
ULTAN Ó BROIN,
South Circular Road,
Dublin 8.