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Are you a frugal traveller abroad? See how you’d do on the civil service overseas expenses guidelines (pdf).
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Latest Links of Interest
It was the ECB wot done it: Dick Roche takes the Fianna Fail defence to the pages of the Wall Street Journal Europe.
IRA members seek US Medicaid assistance? Only in conservative prank video.
HSBC to pay $US63 million compensation to investors in light-touch regulated Irish investment fund linked to Bernie Madoff.
Saudi Arabia thinks Batt O’Keeffe is still Minister for Enterprise (as of 15:50, 20 April) not Richard Bruton.
“When I am on holiday, I am not foreign minister.” It’s not just Ireland where ministers have blind spots about their connections.
I travel a bit because of my job and looking at these rate, I don’t think they are unreasonable. For instance, I have a long-term lecturing interation in Rio de Janeiro. A hotel in a safe part of the city will cost about 150-200 Euro per night. This won’t be a particularly swanky hotel, but it will have air conditioning. Food costs extra and I have to eat in restaurants because I am working and don’t have the facilities to cook. I expect that this will cost about another 30 Euro per day. The rate for Rio de Janeiro is about 700 Reals per day. At the current exhange rate, this is 229 Euro. I guess it might be a bit high, but perhaps if the currency was slightly different, it wouldn’t. I have to travel economy class and I’m not a small person. I also do not get paid a penny extra for working weekends and evenings on these trips. How would I do in the private sector? I’ll tell you it would be much better. Business class flights and nicer hotels. I don’t understand the current round of civil service bashing. For the past decade, I was under the impression that I was making a very good contribution to this country, producing first-class graduates, speaking with the likes of IBM and other about relocating some of their research to Ireland (which they did) and being paid less than I would be in the private sector. These days it just seems that the civil service is the root of all evil. I thought it was the bankers that got us into this mess, but it seem I am wrong. Its the evil public servants. It should be completely disbanded and let people teach themselves.