Irish Speaker resigns over expenses

The fallout spreads:

The speaker of Ireland’s parliament resigned Tuesday after his years of lavish expenses and foreign travel were exposed. …

O’Donoghue’s ouster was inspired both by Ireland’s sudden nosedive into recession and debt — fueling public anger at lawmakers still living large at taxpayer expense — and by the lawmaker-expenses furor in neighboring Britain. Irish broadcasters RTE, unusually, showed O’Donoghue’s parting shots live.

So what were his expenses:

The biggest headline-grabbers included hotel rooms exceeding euro900 ($1,400) a night in Liverpool, Paris and Venice; euro472 ($700) for travel by car between two terminals of the same airport; and trips to horse races from England to Australia, usually accompanied by his wife, with a limousine standing by 24 hours a day, all at taxpayer expense.

How does a hotel room in Liverpool cost more than 900 Euros a night??