TWO GOVERNMENT senators have called on Ivor Callely to resign from the Upper House because of the damage the continuing controversy over his expenses is doing to its reputation.
Green Party chairman Senator Dan Boyle said the drip feed of allegation and the need for the Seanad committee to keep meeting to deal with the issue should prompt Senator Callely to consider his position. “The longer he serves in the Seanad, the more discredit he brings on it,” said Senator Boyle.
On Monday night, Mr Callely announced he was resigning from the party after an internal disciplinary committee found him guilty of “conduct unbecoming” a member of Fianna Fáil.
Last night, Mr Callely’s legal advisers O’Hanrahan & Company issued a statement saying they wished to correct “some inaccuracies in the public arena”. The statement said that, contrary to recent publicity, Mr Callely’s resignation from Fianna Fáil was prompted solely by the refusal of the committee to allow him the opportunity to vindicate his name by granting him an adjournment.
The statement added that his decision to resign was also prompted by the committee’s “decision to substantially rely on the various sensationalist claims made by particular print media whose attention to accuracy, balance and fairness is subservient to the requirements of sensationalism at the expense of truth”.
The statement said the entirety of the session at which Mr Calley was in attendance dealt with procedural matters and he played no part in the deliberations of the committee that led to a finding against him in his absence.
Earlier yesterday, Fianna Fáil Senator Lisa McDonald added her voice to those calling on Mr Callely to resign from the Seanad.
She said that by resigning on Monday night Mr Callely had denied Fianna Fáil the opportunity to “kick him out” of the party.
Minister of State for Natural Resources Conor Lenihan insisted that Taoiseach Brian Cowen had moved swiftly to deal with the expenses controversy but Mr Callely had not been willing to respond. “The controversy caused by Senator Callely’s expenses was bringing Fianna Fáil and politics generally in to disrepute. In that sense, his removal from the party was inevitable,” Mr Lenihan said.
Fine Gael frontbench spokesman Simon Coveney said the Taoiseach should now call on Mr Callely to quit politics.
Mr Coveney said the controversy was an unnecessary distraction to politics at a time when huge challenges required urgent decisions.
Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhín Ó Caoláin also said Mr Callely’s resignation from the party did not go far enough and called on the Taoiseach to demand his resignation from the Seanad.
