Pay scandal at CRC - Principle and society betrayed

The escalating scandal around top-up payments at the Central Remedial Clinic ticks nearly all the boxes needed to define it as the perfect Celtic Tiger/Fianna Fáil rotten can of worms.

It reeks of the aggressive greed that has done so much to undermine Irish people’s capacity to belive that this is, or might ever be, a fair, decent, and honourable society.

Government pay limits were blithely ignored as if they applied to other people, to other classes of workers, but not to CRC executives. Money generously donated was, in the secrecy of the boardroom, hijacked to fatten the already enviable salaries or pensions of a cabal that secured its position through political influence once wielded by a now disgraced, dysfunctional regime.

At least one member of that board was appointed despite repeated and clear concerns articulated by the HSE, the organisation that funds CRC to the tune of around €16m each year.

That such taxpayer subvention — over €300,000 a week — can have so little influence is a minor outrage and brings new urgency to the argument for a charities’ commissioner to oversee the €2bn given by the State to charities each year. The current, and standard, absence of accountability may accurately reflect our self-destructive culture but it is nonetheless scandalous.

As if that was not enough, the HSE only yesterday, just like pathetic, broken-winded financial regulators from another time, began a round of meetings with the charities it supports to establish whether or not they are paying top-up sweeteners. Is it really possible that the HSE does not know the answer to that question and if not why not? Are we really to believe that they do not? If a blind eye was turned to such sleazy behaviour it was in direct conflict with Government policy. Even if this was the case it is pointless, in this blameless society, to ask if there will be consequences. It also contrasts starkly with the limits or cuts imposed on tens of thousands of workers whose terms of employment are publicly known, the very people who supported these charities.

The sense that a complete moral vacuum prevails at the top of the CRC is deepened by those who still argue that the organisation is obliged to continue paying top-ups to some executives. Those suggesting that should try that argument with the tens of thousands of workers whose employment contracts, whose pay and pension arrangements, were cast aside like used Christmas wrapping paper when their employers had to deal with real-world economics.

It is time, too, that those of us who support charities become far more selective. We should support only charities that publish transparent accounts that show how their income is divided between administration and the work they do. All-inclusive pay details must be published and any charity not completely transparent should be ignored by both Government and individuals — and before we make any donations we should make it our business to know which is which.

The squalid air around the scandal is deepened by the fact that the top-up details were released as another round of severe health cuts became apparent. These leaks did point to another layer of dysfunction and dishonesty but were, in reality, a diversionary tactic. How likely is it that the public might never have come to know of this scandal if Government did not need to distract us all from the severity of looming health cuts? Fianna Fáil may have been the casting directors but this Government were the publishers and they chose the moment to their maximum advantage.

That ruse may have backfired though. Today and tomorrow, Taoiseach Enda Kenny will put the finishing touches to his address to the nation scheduled for Sunday. His speech will mark Ireland’s welcome exit from the troika bailout and is expected to acknowledge the sacrifices made right across this society to try to resolve our difficulties.

A great many people accepted the need for that sacrifice and made it, if not willingly, then at least in the knowledge that the alternative would be even worse. That sense of achievement will be undermined and a justifiable sense of bitterness provoked by the CRC scandal and its implications. This scandal, and the others like it as yet unexposed, shows that the golden circle remains immune to economic realities, that it remains defiantly independent, and that it still imagines itself utterly unaccountable. This Government was elected with a huge mandate to confront these toxic issues but its record is uninspiring. Unless it becomes far more assertive, far more aggressive, and far more proactive in confronting the abuses epitomised by the shameless featherbedding at CRC, it will have betrayed that mandate and inevitably pay the price. As we all will.