Ministerial discretion can raise some boats higher than others

DOWN around Killorglin, they reckon that John O’Donoghue can walk on water. Certainly he was well able to make a splash when the local rowing club was out of its depth while building their new boathouse.

But John helped part the red tape to allow the grants flow into their coffers, although he has caused a few ripples in the process.

Not that the minister is too concerned about them, and the 106 members of Killorglin Rowing Club certainly are not as they coast to the opening of their new premises.

The rowing club, which is in the minister's constituency, would be floundering in the deep end without an adjustment to the assessment criteria and that's just what the doctor ordered.

Dr Jim McDaid, that is. He was Minister for Sport at the time, and responsible for all those lovely grants which get politicians out of potholes at election time. Not that John O'Donoghue was in one, and he wanted it to stay that way.

The club's proposed new €690,000 boathouse looked as if it was dead in the water because it failed to qualify for a sports capital grant by a galling seven points. They needed 70, but according to the assessment scheme used by the Department of Sport, the boathouse was worth only 63 points.

Their lifeline came from their local TD for South Kerry, who was then Minister for Justice. He is a firm believer in discretion, especially ministerial discretion, when rules can be changed at a whim. It took just two letters to his colleague Jim McDaid to get the rules changed, the Donegal man being one for discretion as well.

Just to be sure to be sure, the good doctor not only brought the boathouse into the scheme but prescribed four points more than it needed, so it ended up with 74 points.

And €300,000 in the bank! But the amazing thing about the sea change in the fortune of Killorglin Rowing Cumann was that it happened just one month before the general election in 2002. What was even more amazing was that the €300,000 wasn't affected by the wave of cutbacks, secret or otherwise, which happened immediately Fianna Fáil and the Pee Wees (sorry, PDs) were returned to power.

To put their good fortune into perspective, all other clubs weren't exactly pulling at the same weight in the sports grants regatta sponsored by the National Lottery in 2002.

Without ministerial discretion or maybe because of it Passage West Coastal RC got €1,238 and the Edermine club in Wexford got €2,539.

Others got sums ranging from €5,000 to €81,900, but the only rowing organisations to get more than Killorglin were the Irish Amateur Rowing Union at €513,635 and Neptune in Dublin which just pulled ahead with €318,027.

It's easy to explain. Apparently, after John O'Donoghue lobbied Jim McDaid, the Holy Ghost descended on him and whispered the words 'ministerial discretion' into his ear and the doctor diagnosed a major U-turn. At least according to a statement from the Department of Sport, that's how it could have happened. "After consultation with John O'Donoghue, TD, and taking into account the need to achieve an equitable geographical spread of funds among different sports and community groups. Dr James McDaid has determined that heavier weighting should be awarded under these headings, qualifying the project for grant assistance."

As to how many other sports and community groups felt the weight of Jim McDaid's "equitable geographical spread", you would probably have to check with the Holy Ghost, but he's probably not even on a nodding acquaintance with Irish politics.

Having shown such a keen interest in sport before the election, it was only natural that in the bit of a reshuffle that followed it, John O'Donoghue was moved from Justice to the Department of Sport so that his innate talent could flourish.

The lads in the rowing club probably wrote him a letter of congratulations on his new post, but if they did they included another application for a grant.

One thing you would have to admit about Kerry people is that they could hear the grass growing or, in this case, a fair wind blowing for a top-up of the boathouse fund.

Or maybe they thought that Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy had another €20 million to release for sport the reason given by John O'Donoghue and Jim McDaid for Killorglin's inclusion in the first place.

Anyway, in 2003 they looked for €315,000 but there was no general election and even ministerial discretion couldn't very well build the bloody boathouse for them. After all, they are running a rowing club in Kerry, not a racecourse in Kildare.

But the club got the next best thing a grant of €250,000 from John, which left them with just €190,000 to find for the boathouse. And you'll be glad to hear that they did. The 106 members sold 1,020 building blocks at €120 each in a 'circle of friends' scheme.

And they have no greater friend than John O'Donoghue among their supporters, who will be only too happy to officially open the two-storey boathouse on the River Laune on June 5 next.

Sports grants come from National Lottery funding which Fine Gael very uncharitably said was a slush fund now because of the rowing club's good fortune that there was an upcoming general election when they needed a few bob.

Labour's Kathleen Lynch, who submitted Dáil questions on the issue, is demanding that responsibility for allocating the grants should be given to a completely independent body.

John O'Donoghue is against that because, he maintained, it would jeopardise a fundamental tenet of democracy. Democracy Irish-style, I presume.

"The present system ensures ministerial accountability to the Dáil for all decisions taken," he declared.

Presumably, he means accountability for such waste as €52 million for an electronic voting system which will never be used, or the €15 million for a racecourse.

"This is a strength which ought not lightly be cast aside," he added.

Like ministerial discretion, there is obviously strength in our weaknesses.

Another weakness, occasionally, is the belief that old sayings are very apt.

For instance, the one that says 'exchange is no robbery' would be foreign to an untold number of customers of Allied Irish Bank at this stage.

In the past fortnight they discovered it very definitely is, although in the rarified atmosphere of high finance it's referred to as an "administrative cock-up".

When the cock-up crowed the first time, it was €14 million; the second time, €20 million, and it could still crow a third time.

It gave a bit of a croak yesterday when another incident of customer overcharging was discovered.

An AIB spokesman confessed that more than 500 of its mortgage customers may be due refunds because they were given and charged for payment protection plans without having the courtesy of being asked if they wanted them.

You would really begin to wonder who exactly AIB is allied to, because it certainly isn't their customers.