‘I’m worth it’ public servants badly need to rediscover the bottom line

MARY Harney has been unfairly treated over this hairdo business.

She doesn’t deserve to be off the hook entirely — not by any means — but the terrible press she has had over that wash and blow-dry in Florida is largely undeserved.

Down through the years there have been ministers who always demanded the best wherever they went. In fact the phrase “I’m worth it” could have been stolen by L’Oreal for its advertising campaigns from some of our leading politicians.

But it’s never been my understanding that Mary Harney was one of them. She has been wrongly branded over this incident.

It’s a bit of a no-win situation this, especially (if I may say so) for women who are members of Government.

When we send ministers abroad, we expect them to do their best for Ireland. We hope and assume they will know their brief, that they’ll have all the skills of negotiation and timing, that they’ll be on their best behaviour. And that they’ll look their best as well.

We’d all be horrified if a minister appeared on our televisions looking the worse for wear. Remember all the fuss a few years ago when Bertie Ahern appeared at some top leaders’ meeting wearing a canary yellow jacket?

No one can even remember now what the meeting was about, or what Bertie was doing there. All we can remember is the terrible jacket.

And if the then tánaiste and enterprise minister had turned up anywhere in a representative capacity looking bedraggled and tousled, that is all the media would cover.

So it would be part of our expectation of her that she would look as well as possible. Because we expect it of our ministers, it is therefore part of their responsibility to be well groomed and turned out, as well as well briefed and knowledgeable.

In saying that I am assuming we are being told the whole truth and that the full $400 bill wasn’t incurred by the tánaiste. I would be perfectly prepared to defend her claiming a modest expense to prepare for a day of official engagements, provided that was all it was (Should she choose to pay for her own hairdos, of course, I’d respect that even more).

So, that’s my starting position. People in public office represent us, and we want it done well. And if they incur some expense in representing us well, they should be entitled to claim that expense back in the normal way.

I’ve had my disagreements with Mary Harney over the years and my views on her tenure in office are probably reasonably well known. But I would never doubt her capacity to represent us well when she is abroad, nor her commitment and ability when it comes to mastering her brief on our behalf.

But there are bottom lines here and I have to say I’ve picked up an overwhelming sense that some of these people — in the higher echelons of politics and the public service — have lost sight of where the bottom lines are.

First of all, the rules should be accessible to every citizen. I know there are regulations about what people in public office can claim when they are abroad.

I wrote about it here in the first week of September, well before the Fás row broke out. Then, oddly enough, it was easy to find all the circulars that govern these matters on the Department of Finance’s website. Just now, and I’m not suggesting a conspiracy here, they seem to have gone missing.

But we’re entitled to know what a minister can claim, what a minister’s spouse can claim, when can they travel first class? And secondly, we’re entitled to know what they do claim, as opposed to what they’re entitled to.

I can’t see any good reason why a minister’s salary and expenses shouldn’t be in the annual report of his or her department and posted on its website. And I don’t believe any minister should ever be in receipt of pay, expenses, or any other form of benefit from anywhere else but his or her own department.

If a minister is travelling abroad to support, say, an Irish trade mission, all the minister’s costs should be borne by his or her department, so they can be properly accounted for. The department can recoup those expenses from the body organising the trip, but the minister shouldn’t be involved in any way in that.

And isn’t it time we got back to the second key principle, apart from transparency — and that’s the principle of modesty. Top public servants, elected or otherwise, are very well paid. But if they also expect to be treated like little princes — and certainly some of the stories beginning to emanate now would suggest that — something has gone seriously wrong.

There was a time in Ireland when senior politicians, including great Fianna Fáil leaders, took it as part of their responsibility to give good example. They lived modestly, in some cases almost ascetically, because they believed no one should ever profit from the public purse.

But in recent years — and perhaps it started with the Charvet shirts and the Coq Hardi lunches — there has been a growing sense that office brings handsome extra-curricular rewards, legal and otherwise. Some politicians can see nothing wrong in receiving ‘dig-outs’, some politicians think a €50,000 gift is entirely defensible if it can be called a political donation. Perhaps that’s where the rot set in.

The bottom line, though, and I’m sorry to have to say it, is that a forensic trawl through the accounts of more than a few State agencies would uncover a lot of padding in the lifestyles of executives, board members and the politicians to whom the agency is supposed to report. It’s not that anyone demands the luxuries any more, it’s more that everyone takes them for granted nowadays.

WE REALLY do need to make a fresh start in relation to all this stuff. There was a time when public service meant being at the service of your fellow man — not sticking your nose in the trough. There was a time when politics meant leadership, authority, vision — too often now politics means mé féinery.

But it’s not all bad news. It was genuinely heartening, at the end of a week when public service had been once again tarnished by the behaviour of a few to be reminded of what genuine public service means.

If you don’t know what I mean, you weren’t watching Eamon Gilmore’s thoughtful and brilliant speech to his party conference last weekend.

It was a speech with focus and vision. Gilmore spoke about hope and confidence — not as a pious aspiration, but backed up with well thought out policies and ideas. It was honest and confident, and I reckon marked his passage into being a leader of real substance and future.

I think it is becoming clearer and clearer that a major house cleaning is necessary. Gilmore emerged over this weekend as perhaps the only elected leader in the Dáil with the vision and focus to strike out in a different direction. And I suspect he has always thought it natural to pay for his own hairdos.