I have written before about the Fine Gael Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy who has overseen the explosion of the homelessness crisis into a national catastrophe (read about him HERE). I’ve also written about the culture of greed and entitlement by elected Fine Gael politician Maria Bailey who upon receipt of legal advice by Minister for Culture Josepha Madigan, tried to fraudulently claim insurance from a hotel when she drunkenly fell off a swing while holding two bottles of booze in her hands (read about her HERE).

Now it is time to focus our attention on an even worse example of corruption in the Fine Gael party – an individual from the Cork North-Central constituency called Dara Murphy, who has spent the last several years with his  snout in the trough of taxpayers’ money with the knowledge and approval of his party and its leader Leo Varadkar. He is the human manifestation of a pig from George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’.

Murphy was elected as a TD for Fine Gael in 2011. In 2014, he was appointed as Minister of State with responsibility for data protection and European Affairs at the Departments of the Taoiseach and Foreign Affairs –  positions he served in, until June 2017.  His first brush with notoriety stemming from his overwhelming sense of entitlement came in 2015 when his car broke down at 3am in county Cork as he was driving to Dublin for a 6.40am flight to Brussels. Rather than pay for a taxi to the airport, he arranged for a police escort to make his flight, wasting thousands in taxpayers’s money.

In October 2017, he was appointed Campaign Director for the European People’s Party in the 2019 European Parliament election. This was a full time job that he held while claiming to still be an active TD. As part of the rightwing European People’s Party he was paid €10,000 per month. He continued to draw in his €96,000 a year salary as a TD. Of course he did.

The most grotesque element of his greed however was the manner in which he popped in to Dail Eireann (Irish parliament) on the way to the airport to fob (register) his presence in the Dail. TDs are allowed €4130 per month in ‘expenses’ no questions asked, so long as they clock in a certain number of days. Seemingly he wasn’t actually doing any work in the Dail – he was engaged in fraud to legally steal fake expenses from taxpayers. Effectively he was clearing €270,000 a year from taxpayers although most of this was stolen (or swindled).

His party was well aware of this theft. Corruption, fraud and entitlement seem to be the hallmarks of the unlovely Fine Gael party – although it only seems to concerns them when it is poor people engaging in these activities.

Last week Murphy’s fraud was exposed in the press. The pressure was on. The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar pretended to be concerned about Murphy’s dodgy dealings. That evening there was a vote of no-confidence in the housing minister Eoghan Murphy, who has presided over an unprecedented housing disaster in Ireland. Dara Murphy’s last act as a TD was to cast his vote to support his appalling colleague on his dire failure to address the housing crisis.

He then quit as a TD (2 years since working as one) to take up a job as deputy head of staff for Mariya Gabriel – European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth. He will be paid €150,000 per annum for this new role.

As a result of quitting as a TD he is no longer subject to the scrutiny of the Standards in Public Office inquiry. He will be ‘encouraged’ to pay back some of the money he stole in expenses. He is under no obligation to do so.

Snake-oil salesman Leo Varadkar made some mealy mouthed declaration that TDs’ ‘expenses’ need to be addressed. Nothing will be done to address this.

It is quite clear that Dara Murphy is unsuited to hold any type of public office. By rights he should be facing criminal investigation and jailtime for large scale theft.

This will not happen. He will not face any criminal sanctions.

He cannot however be allowed to bring the office of his new employer Mariya Gabriel into disrepute. By employing Dara Murphy she is endorsing criminality and theft.

He needs to be suspended without pay from his new role pending investigation into his activities in Ireland. If found guilty of wrongdoing he needs to pay back every cent he has stolen.

Mariya Gabriel needs to be contacted to make sure this happens. She can be reached at the following email address – cab-gabriel-contact@ec.europa.eu . Her twitter handle is @GabrielMariya . I encourage you all to get in touch with her.