Self-serving Kiely deserves little charity

Paul Kiely is a man who got around. He was a very busy bee in the charity and voluntary sector. Chief executive of this company; secretary of another; and board member of a third — all of which were interlinked. A man like that could do with a rest after his strenuous efforts, and what better way to kick back than with an obscene pension.

The detail of how the Central Remedial Clinic’s board ransacked charity coffers to send Kiely on his way was shocking, but not surprising. Kiely was retiring as chief executive of the CRC three years ahead of schedule. He needed a pension to reflect his entitlement, based on a salary of €230,000, to which he also felt entitled. This required the board to come up with €740,000 for him, which was duly completed by dipping into the coffers of the CRC’s charity arm, the Friends of the CRC.

What was shocking was the scale, of both the amount appropriated from charity money, and Kiely’s sense of entitlement. To put it in context, his pension of circa €90,000 per annum would be unattainable in the private sector this side of millionaire status. In the public sector, you’d want to have made it close to Secretary General status in a department to be within reach of that amount. Otherwise, only long-serving ministers could hope to pull in that wodge of cash, and there is widespread feeing that such pensions for politicians are nothing short of feather bedding.

Kiely didn’t dirty his bib in any major way while he was in situ, but nobody is for a minute suggesting he was some class of a dynamic CEO. Nobody has rushed to his defence to claim he was the Michael O’Leary of the charity sector. Yet, out of somewhere, he grasped his sense of entitlement. And quite obviously that sense took precedence over the needs of the people with disabilities who use the CRC, not to mention the hard working staff.

Some people have expressed astonishment at the board’s acquiescence in taking money collected, and diverting it to fatten out Kiely’s pension. Nobody should be surprised. This recession had demonstrated that when the chips are down, the strong and powerful ensure that the most vulnerable are first to get it in the neck.

Some of these people simply live in their own world. Look at the detail revealed to the Public Account Committee last Thursday. The transfer of the money was labelled in the accounts as a “donation“. A donation is usually provided to a person or organisation in need, more often than not to provide basic comforts. In this case, the “donation” was to ensure that Kiely’s inflated sense of entitlement was satisfied.

Not that his sense of self-worth was unique. Far from it. We have seen all manner of individuals, working in regulation, banking, politics, the upper echelons of the public service, harbour genuine belief that they really are worth the crazy salaries and pensions they have managed to make their own.

There were, however, some features in this case that made it unique. The charity and voluntary sector is not bound by many rules when it comes to corporate governance. This places greater responsibility on individuals and groups to self-regulate, and observe the highest standards of probity. To their credit, many do so.

High standards weren’t followed too closely at the CRC. Kiely was chief executive of the clinic, while also serving on the board of the Friends of the CRC, the charity that raised money for the clinic. Five other board members of the CRC, including chairman Jim Nugent, also sat on the board of the charity arm. In addition, Kiely was the secretary of the Friends body, a role that is vested with an obligation to ensure good corporate governance is followed. Any kind of corporate governance was already compromised based on the overlapping membership of the two boards.

Then there was a third, vital entity. The Care Trust is a charity that was set up jointly by the CRC, the Rehab Group, and the Mater hospital to fundraise. The money is gathered through activities such as selling scratch-cards and weekly draws. Annually, the charity has revenue of around €3.25 million, of which €250,000 goes to the Mater.

The remainder is split down the middle by CRC and Rehab. (The latter, by the way, is headed up by Angela Kerins, who on Morning Ireland two weeks ago called for more transparency in the sector, but refused to reveal her own salary)

Anyway, guess who was on the board of the Care Trust? Kiely, Nugent, Brian Conlon and Hamilton Goulding, all of whom were also directors of both the CRC and the Friends of CRC. (All of these individuals resigned from all the boards last December).

The potential for conflict of interest is huge, and would not be tolerated in any sector where basic corporate governance was policed.

The money raised by the Care Trust is forwarded to the CRC, through the Friends body, and makes up around 80% of the annual income for the Friends body. It was out of this money that the board of the CRC agreed to fund Kiely’s pension. Who was going to object? The overlapping boards ensured that everything would be hunky dorey, as long as nobody from the outside world came in the examine things.

Kiely is due back before the Public Accounts Committee and one question that he should be asked is why he decided to retire early. Did he sniff the wind, and sense that the good times might be rolling to an end? Was he minded to get out while the going was good? One way or the other, he and his fellow board members have done a serious disservice to a clinic that does vital work for thousands, and to the wider charity sector.

The whole scandal has also once again raised another issue. Why are services such as those provided at the Central Remedial Clinic provided to a large extent through the goodwill of charity? Are those who require the services not entitled to it as a right, just as any other citizen has a right to basic healthcare?

The charity and voluntary sector mushroomed over the decades when the State was underdeveloped, and, in certain aspects, impoverished. Human rights were also underdeveloped. Those with disability were expected to be grateful for charity. That attitude would be regarded as an insult today, yet many of the services are still provided on the basis of the generosity of the public.

Nobody in power feels any shame at such as state of affairs. There are no serious efforts to provide services through statutory agencies as a matter of right. The default pose is to simply look away, and pretend that this is really the way that things are done in a developed, functioning democracy. With such an attitude in the centres of power, perhaps it was only a matter of time before a scandal like the current one exploded official delusions.