We have the right to know who we pay - Public funds and transparency

IN ALL but the most exceptional circumstances, all public expenditure, the great majority of Government spending, should be open to rigorous and easy public scrutiny — scrutiny that might lead to a novel degree of accountability that could provoke real sanctions if wrongdoing is uncovered.

Mon, 01 Jun, 2015 - 01:00

Editorial

One scandal after another in the relatively short history of this republic is rooted in the fact — the shabby, sleazy practice so convenient for some — that our culture of secrecy has facilitated public and private sector relationships that would hardly satisfy even our regime of light-touch regulation, were they more open to examination.

It seems reasonable, too, to suggest that it is difficult to reach an informed position on a particular policy or scheme unless you are in possession of the full facts around it, including all expenditure involved and who the ultimate beneficiaries of that public expenditure are.

This weakness in public administration, this expensive see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil lacuna, is confirmed with depressing regularity when the Comptroller and Auditor General publishes his report each year — a report that usually highlights a litany of waste and over-expenditure on projects secured through a questionable public tender process.

As individuals we are careful, or at least we should be, about how we use our money, so why should it be any different when the State, or the European Union, spends our money on our behalf? Surely in those circumstances the scrutiny should be at least as rigorous and transparent?

This weekend the Department of Agriculture, to comply at the 11th hour with European Union regulations, published details of payments made to farmers under the Common Agriculture Policy (Cap).

Unsurprisingly, the Irish Farmers’ Association expressed anger that such information about public money should reach the public square, even though one farmer — Walter Furlong from Enniscorthy — got €367,648.88 under the scheme. Average payments are just a fraction of that figure.

Teagasc reported that the average subsidy received by farmers is €18,859 and the single-payment element of that is €13,849. Farmers in Co Cork received more than €164m in single-farm payments last year, making it the best rewarded county. The EU paid farmers €52.4bn under Cap last year.

IFA president Eddie Downey said farmers were “extremely angry” that their confidentiality was being breached and their personal financial data was made public.

In contrast to the IFA, and chiming far more accurately with the mood of the day, ICMSA’s John Comer accepted the need for transparency, a position that would be supported by the vast majority of European citizens.

It is, after all, easy to establish what a teacher is paid, how much a nurse might earn, and how very little some welfare dependents have to survive on, because those funds come from the public purse.

Why should farmers, or anyone else in receipt of public funds, be any different?