Uproar about a New Ross delegation to the Kennedy Shriver funeral was quelled by the modesty of the trip, writes NOEL WHELAN
THE SOUTHEAST radio switchboard lit up last week as controversy raged for a morning across Wexford about the decision of New Ross Town Council to send a delegation to Massachusetts for the funeral Mass of Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The local radio station became the venue for a lively debate about the merits of spending ratepayers’ and taxpayers’ money on such a trip in the current economic climate.
Many of the initial calls to the station denounced the trip as a waste of money and a junket. Some callers even depicted it as local politicians getting notions above their station and seeking to swan around with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Oprah Winfrey and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The fact that the trip caused controversy at all was localised aftershock from the noisy storm raging in some of the national media about politicians’ expenses and foreign travel. Notwithstanding the wider issues raised by the McCarthy report on public expenditure, the Nama legislation and the second Lisbon debate, much media space has been found again this August for colourful stories about individual trips by Ministers or officials.
The mood in Wexford about the trip to the Kennedy Shriver funeral calmed as the context of the decision of the council to send the delegation was given and the relatively modest costs involved emerged. Callers from the New Ross end of the county also began to communicate the particularly close and valuable relationship which the town had managed to maintain with the Kennedy family since their late brother’s official visit there as US president in 1963.
Most listeners began to see that it wasn’t the lavish junket some had initially assumed. This trip had a worthy purpose. A card or note on council paper could have officially conveyed the condolences of the town to the Kennedy family, but the Irish tradition is to travel to pay respects in person if at all possible. The New Ross delegation was among 600 specially invited guests who attended the funeral Mass following which they had the opportunity to sympathise personally with Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s family.
As one would imagine, they were very appreciative that someone had taken the time to travel on behalf of the town for which, the family said, she had a distinct affection and particularly fond memories of her visits there when accompanying her brother in 1963 and later when she came to Ireland for the 2003 Special Olympics.
The council emphasised that the purpose of the trip was to acknowledge the contribution which the late president’s siblings had made to the town, and to cement relations with the next generation of the family. Pressed by the controversy to justify the trip on economic grounds, the council pointed to the manner in which the link to this most high-profile of American families had put New Ross on the tourist map and had become a calling card which allowed the town to lobby above its weight in corporate America.
Budget management on the trip was tight. There was no extended entourage: the delegation comprised just two people, namely the current council cathaoirleach, Cllr Vincent Furness, and the town clerk, David Minogue.
According to subsequent local newspaper reports the total bill to the town for the trip was €2,700, which included two flights, two hotel rooms and car hire. It is hard to imagine that such a trip from Ireland to America, of necessity planned at short notice in mid-August, could have been priced much cheaper. In all, the two men spent just 27 hours in the United States. In addition to the funeral service they attended a Special Olympics event in memory of Mrs Kennedy Shriver and, while in Boston, took the opportunity to present to the Kennedy Presidential Museum a maquette of the commemorative statue which was unveiled on New Ross Quay last year to mark the 45th anniversary of the president’s visit.
Sometimes travel by politicians and officials is necessary and, if proportionate, the cost involved can be justified. This trip was one of those occasions. I am not using it to argue that all of the expenditure revealed about ministerial trips and expenses in recent weeks was justified, but I am using it to argue that every trip should be examined on its own merits.
The Wexford-born writer Colm Tóibín was reported recently as having criticised the McCarthy report as “recognising the cost of everything and the value of nothing”. In fact, Tóibín’s attitude to the report was more sophisticated than that soundbite suggests. His concerns were focused on cuts proposed in funding to the arts, but in his interview with Myles Dungan he said he recognised the need for the wider process in which McCarthy was involved.
It is unfair and inaccurate to suggest that McCarthy was concerned only with the cost of everything. Of course, the report’s primary focus was in itemising and analysing where and how public monies were spent. However, when dealing with the arts, as with all other sectors, the McCarthy report didn’t suggest certain policy objectives were without value. It merely pointed out that in tighter budgetary situations the cost of spending money on some of these policy objectives in the manner and through the mechanisms it has been done to date must be questioned.
The McCarthy approach is not to suggest that everything must by cut – it argues that all items of public expenditure, including those on arts projects or foreign trips by politicians, must be individually examined to assess whether they are necessary or proportionate.
It is precisely because public money is spent on things of value that, particularly when it is scarce, it must be spent in more effective ways.