Mary Davis has been paid millions over her time as a self-descibed 'charity' worker, while disabled persons have been denied basic care due to lack of funding.
Mary Davis who stated on RTE that she is not concerned about wages or salaries as she works for a charity was paid over 156,000 Euro in salary alone last year, 60,000 in fees and her expence accounts remains undeclared. A charity on whose board she sits hired her husband for 60,000 Euros worth of work and she sits on the Boards of two banks and was origionally on the Board to oversee the Berty Bowl, a white elephant that cost the tax payer vasts sums of money.
Independent candidate Mary Davis has challenged the Fine Gael party over the alleged use of professional pollsters to generate “negative stories” in the presidential campaign.
Speaking in Dublin this morning at the formal launch of her campaign, Ms Davis said most of her rivals were professional politicians who may have thought she would “fold” in the face of criticism.
“Let me tell them – they could not be more wrong. They are reverting to type – engaging in the type of negative campaigning that has made Irish people so cynical about politics," she said.
“Paying money to polling companies may serve the partisan aims of a political party but it does not serve the cause of the debate about our future here in Ireland," she said. “But I know that I can deal with negative stories for one reason – I have nothing to hide.
“Most of what has been written about me is already in the public domain, and I have been willing to be open and transparent in dealing with any queries that have arisen.”
Asked afterwards who was paying for this campaign, she said: “It would appear to me ... that it is driven by Fine Gael.
"I’m rather surprised at that and I would really like if Fine Gael would come out and contradict that," she said. “Gay Mitchell, to me, seems to be a very decent person, so I don’t know why political groups or any candidate would use negative polling in the way that it is being used, but I do know for a fact that it is being used.”
She was also asked about a report in today’s Irish Independent that she and her husband Julian were on the board of the charity Social Entrepreneurs Ireland when it hired the services of a PR company where her husband was also a board member.
“We had absolutely nothing to do with the awarding of contracts in public relations and communications or in any other area,” she said.
If elected, she said she would call a series of regional conventions for groups dealing with mental health problems, elderly people living in isolation or poverty, women suffering from exploitation and abuse, people with literacy problems and people living with a disability.
“I will acknowledge people for their outstanding service to Irish life by introducing a Citizen’s Award sponsored by the president.”
She would request the Government to bring the office of President under the Freedom of Information Act and publish an annual report, “with full details of my activities, and detailed income and expenditure accounts for my office and household”.
REMUNERATION: PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE Mary Davis earned more than €60,000 in director fees last year in addition to her salary of more than €150,000, according to figures on her income published on her website.
Ms Davis released details of her earnings from her position as managing director of Special Olympics Europe Eurasia, as well as income from her membership of three State and three commercial boards. She also posted her P60 on her website.
Ms Davis has earned a total of €390,632 in fees over the past decade from being a member of the board of six companies.
Two of the commercial boards are related to Bank of Ireland. The first was ICS Building Society, for which she received fees of €25,000 a year between 2008 and 2010. She was also a director of Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank in 2010, for which she received a fee of €18,750. Ms Davis was also a board member of The Irish Times Trust from 2006 until earlier this year. Her annual payments were: €13,700 in 2007 and 2008; €11,645 in 2009; €10,960 in 2010; and €4,566 this year.
The three State boards she has been a member of are the National Sports Campus Development Authority (the company originally formed to build the so-called Bertie Bowl), of which she was a member for 10 years; the Dublin Airport Authority and the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland.
Ms Davis’s salary was €156,310 last year. “I have called for openness in the debate regarding who should be the next president of Ireland and I am perfectly happy to practise what I preach in relation to transparency,” she said.
Another candidate, Seán Gallagher, also disclosed the payments he received from the three boards on which he has served.
He applied to become a director of Fás in 2010 and donated the fees of €11,000 to charity.
He has received a total of €30,000 in fees from the North-South body InterTrade Ireland over a four-year period (an average of €7,500 per annum). She said he had declined expenses from the body. Mr Gallagher was also appointed to the board of Drogheda Port Company in July last year. He said he had declined any board fees or expenses.
