Month: September 2009

A number of people have contacted us over the last few weeks wondering if they could chip in a few quid to help us fund our work… now they can. See: Paypal donate button, on your right.

Now, as those who have read our prior posts will know, we’re always harping on about transparency and the wisdom of The Crowd. However, at the minute we’re unsure as to how to set up our donations system in the most transparent, but practical, way possible.

At present the donate button is linked to Gavin’s PayPal acount (to which I also now have access), that’s a temporary measure, we plan to open a joint account specifically for TheStory donations. When we get that sorted here’s what I’m suggesting: We publish details – monetary amounts, name of donor, general location – in a post at the end of each month.

Then, we will receipt spending and publish it all here. These would essentially be our receipts, made public when the story is complete or gone stale… FOI, Land Registry, CRO and all other government documents would be included…

Gavin wonders if people will be comfortable having their names listed as donors – I said if they can provide a solid reason why their name should not be published, we’ll accept that but names should be published by default perhaps.

Any alternative suggestions?

FYI: Circa €250 has already been spent on FOIs etc in the last three weeks, would people agree that this would be covered? Opinions wanted. No profit will be made from this, all time, travel expenses and communication costs etc will be taken from our own pockets.

So during the buildup to Brian Cowen appearing on the Late Late Show, the Department of Finance went and published a huge amount of information onto their website, the Special Group Background Documents, submitted by departments etc to Bord Snip, to outline how they proposed cutting back.

It is worth noting that many or all of these documents were actively being sought by journalists through FOI requests, and in the normal course of events, would have been gradually released with redactions. But the Department, on a Friday evening, dumped the entire lot:

To facilitate the work of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes, the heads of the various Government Departments/Public Bodies prepared initial evaluation papers detailing their areas of expenditure. The Department of Finance also prepared separate evaluation papers on each area, as well as some papers evaluating a range of cross-cutting issues. These documents are set out below for reference; with a limited number of redactions in some cases in line with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Acts 1997 and 2003 (please click here for more information in this regard).

I was particularly interested in the Houses of the Oireachtas. It outlines spending by the House over the past six years, and gives a breakdown on how much it costs the taxpayer to pay for the Dail and Seanad. Continue reading “How much do the Houses of the Oireachtas cost us?”