Government needs to pay heed to taxpayers
It’s none other than having a neck like a jockey’s proverbial hind quarters. There is no other way to interpret the performance of Department of Finance outgoing Secretary General, Kevin Cardiff, in front of the Public Accounts Committee last week.
The fact that Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Taoiseach Enda Kenny continue to support Mr Cardiff’s candidacy for the six-year financially lucrative European Auditors gig and that other ministers appear to speak in “tongues” or almost incoherently as Joan Burton did yesterday morning when questioned about her support, makes most of us wonder what is really going on in Government Buildings. Clearly, managing the country on behalf of the taxpayers is way down the list.
Let’s get this straight. Mr Cardiff having been responsible for banking, finance, etc… since 2006, was early in 2010 given the top gig in Finance, and for up 15 months his department managed to mislay €3.6 billion of Irish debt that had already been paid. The mind boggles as to how such an amount of money could have been missed given accounting standards and such like.
In simple terms, the books would not balance unless they were hooked and to do that someone would have had to consciously do it.
What makes it even more interesting is the fact that NAMA had pointed out the error to Finance officials on several occasions. Yet, no one seemed to do anything about it. One can only wonder why? Mr Cardiff seems to believe that he is like the captain in a ship in a storm and that he cannot be responsible for such trivia.
One just wonders why he is getting not only the big bucks, but is being rewarded by being given a prestigious EU gig. Mind you, at least one Dáil inhabitant seemed to think that he was being moved on rather than being rewarded. Will we ever know the truth?
The one thing we do know is that the previous government helped a lot of other folk out the door with big lump sums and pensions to tide them over. But, hey, the Government says that this guy is very qualified for the new job. Indeed in his own words, it’ll be a doddle and who are we mere mortals to suggest otherwise?
However, at least some on the selection committee and in the EU parliament are not as laid back as we appear to be. They seem to see it as some sort of insult. His ratification interview should be interesting.
Mr Cardiff’s attitude in front of PAC seemed to be similar to many of his colleagues and indeed that of the major bankers also when they were interviewed. That is, they were dismissive, seemingly suggesting that these TD representatives of the people were little more than an annoyance and were simply interfering with major matters of state.
I noted a similar dismissive attitude on another interview yesterday morning. During the morning radio show on RTÉ 1, Paddy O’Gorman was interviewing some people outside the law courts near the Phoenix Park and was asking them about the proposed new system for collecting fines from folk, eg taking it bit by bit from their social welfare monies rather than sending the individual to jail, costing even more money. The common view was that it should not be deducted from what was already a meagre allowance.
Indeed, one individual simply said that they could send him to jail as often as they liked rather than pay the fine. From where I and many others are sitting there is very little difference between both sets of individuals.
The real icing on the cake though is the fact that social welfare will be reduced by €700 million in the budget which just coincides with another €700m being paid to Anglo bondholders. The former is being cut from folk who are scratching for a living. The latter is being paid to “professional” gamblers and is neither warranted, nor was it guaranteed by the state. But I suppose it’s no surprise when we see how these folk perform even in the public eye.
- business@examiner.ie
