Junket jolly: 'State bosses used taxpayers' cash to take 52 spouses overseas'

JUST what the XXXX is going on? Is this report about an Irish state organisation using taxpayers' money to bring the spouses of 52 staff members on a foreign trip actually true?!!

Not surprisingly, no one wants to own up to the big days out – they must be still getting over the jet-lag.

So, if no one will step up to the plate (unless it's for a free lunch on a junket overseas), each Irish Government minister should be tasked by Taoiseach Brian Cowen with getting a solemn declaration from each agency under their department's umbrella to state categorically that they are not the guilty holiday party.

Then maybe we can flush out the culprits and make them pay, if not in hard cash but in public opprobrium.

And where are all the ministers who love banging on about getting tough on social welfare claimants taking the taxpayer for a ride? Or, for that matter, the Green Party ministers? They should all be putting their own houses in order.