SF slams Coalition for ‘FF-style cronyism’

The Coalition has been accused of engaging in "Fianna Fáil-style politics of cronyism" by "stacking" State boards with party supporters or associates.

Sinn Féin said the Government has engaged in the “same old tired politics” of its predecessors, after the Irish Examiner revealed the majority of positions were being filled by Ministers without being advertised.

This is despite promises by the Taoiseach Enda Kenny after entering office in March 2011 that vacancies on the boards of state-funded bodies would be advertised to help attract new talent and end cronyism.

The new rules followed controversy surrounding a range of appointments made by the Fianna Fáil-led government in its final days in office.

But analysis of the 1,300 appointments made since then show that 28% of positions were publicly advertised, with many ministers blatantly flouting the rules they set three years ago.

During Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil yesterday, Sinn Féin’s Jonathan O’Brien said: “When this Government took office, we were promised a new way of doing politics that would be open, transparent and accountable. In fact, we were promised no less than a democratic revolution.”

He said: “In reality, what we are seeing is the same old tired politics of this administration’s predecessors.”

He was asking Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte, who was standing in for Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, about his appointment last week of a failed Labour by-election candidate and a former Fine Gael TD to the board of Bord na Móna. “Even the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan got in on the act when he named a failed Labour Party councillor to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art,” he said.

“In yet another betrayal of the electorate, both Fine Gael and Labour Party ministers are blatantly and unashamedly engaging in acts of cronyism by way of their appointments to state boards. Mr Rabbitte responded that this Coalition had created “an expressions of interest facility” to invite members of the public to apply for positions.

“The proposition that somebody ought to be automatically disqualified because he or she may have some political allegiance is a proposition I utterly reject,” he said.

Mr Rabbitte said Sinn Féin had, during its time in government in the North, appointed Lynn Boylan as chair of Safefood prior to her recent election to the European Parliament.

Earlier, Labour’s Kathleen Lynch told Newstalk Radio that she reads all the CVs presented for state board positions but that “sometimes the people that are most appropriate for the position, are not always the people that apply.”