- in expenses probe
By - Senan Molony,Deputy Political Editor.
Kathy Sinnott, the anti-Lisbon MEP for Munster, has featured in a German TV report on the alleged abuse of attendance expenses at the European Parliament.
Ms. Sinnott is seen queuing with other MEPs to sign on for daily allowances at the European Parliament in Strasbourg - with a line of suitcases parked behind them.
The German TV channel RTL claims in its expose that parliamentarians sign on for attendance expenses early in the morning, then depart immediately for the airport and flights home.
In one part of the report, Ms. Sinnott tells reporter Thomas Meier: "Be very careful about using this, and what you report about me".
"I have worked seven hours already, up to seven o'clock". The interview takes place at 7am on a Friday, and the reporter notes drily that the daily payment is "not intended for night work".
Tired
Yesterday Ms. Sinnott revealed she had received a large amount of hate mail following the broadcast. She insisted that she had worked all night and had been happy to talk to the reporter on that basis, but became tired when he kept being "abusive".
"I spoke to him for six or seven minutes, answered all his questions. When he finally wore me down, I am finally staring at him exhausted . . . and he only put on [screened] that bit. It's very unfair".
The news report can be viewed on YouTube and videospider.tv, and Ms Sinnott has posted her own rebuttal.
She told the Irish Independent yesterday that the reporter was "like a cat who had caught a mouse and was playing with it for a while", because she was the only one who spoke to him.
"I had nothing to hide. But I kinda felt bad for him, because everyone else was running away. They were signing and leaving, fresh from their hotels".
She said she wasn't going to say it was an abuse for other MEPs. "For me, I couldn't do it. I would have to work. But what they are doing is completely legal".
Ms. Sinnott said the fact that she had been working all night could be proved by the 97 emails she had sent out in the early hours after attending a debate on human rights in Belarus the afternoon before. She said she was "probably the hardest working" MEP in the parliament. "I am on eight committees, and most others are only on two".
She admitted she had been on her way to the airport - and was transported by the EU Parliament to Frankfurt Hahn, when she eventually boarded a Ryanair flight to Kerry.
Ms. Sinnott said she had been awake for 23 hours when she finally got to bed in Ireland.
© The Irish Independent, 2nd. July 2008.