We pay a high price for less than scrupulous attitude to money
Yet in terms of how we operate, here in what the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, likes to call ‘the best little country in the world in which to do business’, they would seem joined at the hip.
While we suffered during the recession, and many people continue to suffer, we learnt little. With every month that passes, there is the sense of our current little boom getting boomier, and the business of our public affairs continuing just as it always did.
I see that Brown Thomas has a red crocodile handbag on sale for Christmas for €29,000. One Dublin restaurant (which I visited for an early bird last week — it’s in my neighbourhood) received 1,000 booking inquiries in three days after an exceptionally good newspaper review. It had to suspend bookings. It deserved every bit of the praise, but does that many people wanting a piece of the action remind you of anything?
Estate agents are opening branch offices on street-corner buildings that had been vacant for years, and, as they do, the house prices seem to keep going up.
A friend was selling recently and, surprise, surprise, the advice from the auctioneer was to price the house at considerably lower than its value, to generate interest and get a bidding war going. The tactic worked a treat.
Meanwhile, the L’Oreal generation has not just survived the recession, but is thriving. Just ask Pat Smith, the former secretary general of the Irish Farmers’ Association.
Am I naive to still be dumbstruck by the massive salary this man was on, and a pension pot that would make a multi-millionaire blush?
Whatever about him getting that much pre-recession, how in God’s name did such an absurd amount survive the hardship years, during which we heard plenty about the horribly tough times facing farmers.
These farmers, the organisation’s 88,000 members, were the ones paying the subs that contributed to the IFA’s €13m income a year, oblivious to the wages being paid at the top level.
Something about the IFA’s image as wholesome and dogged, and well able to organise a tractor protest the length of the country to end at the gates of Government Buildings, makes it all the more unbelievable. The Manuel-from-Fawlty Towers, shoulder-shrugging defence of “me no nothing” that we’ve been hearing from various senior people, in relation to those fat-cat salaries and perks, couldn’t be more in contrast to the former savvy image.
I know there is an argument that Pat Smith really delivered for the IFA — just look at the tax breaks that farmers got in this year’s budget and last, a combined €45m. Clearly, this is an individual who was well able to lobby. Indeed, last week, IFA president, Eddie Downey, when announcing Pat Smith’s resignation, said it was “very regrettable and a great loss”.
But if he was so clearly worth the money, as evidenced by Downey’s statement, then why was there not transparency about the amount that he was earning?
The reason is simple — these men, in the upper tier of the organisation, knew that no level of return would justify to members the amount of money being paid to this one individual.
Meanwhile, we also learnt this week that many of those senior executives in voluntary hospitals, and in health agencies, who received top-up payments are to keep them. You’ll remember, two years ago, when controversy erupted over the millons of euro being paid in such payments, not least at the Central Remedial Clinic, where some public donations were used. Those who followed the saga will remember then Minister for Health, James Reilly, insisting those payments had to stop. For his part, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said they had “to be dealt with”.
Over at the Commission of Investigation into the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), we learn that the inquiry into write-offs will take several years to complete, even if extra legal powers, concerning documents that are privileged, confidential and commercially sensitive, are granted. Would anyone in their right mind wish to swap places with the judge in this unenviable task?
But back to the banking-inquiry fiasco, and it is no exaggeration to describe it as such. It seems Monty Pythonesque to suggest it, but there is a case for an inquiry into how this previous inquiry (do keep up) turned into such a balls-up. One the one hand, it is hard not to feel sympathy for the committee members who toiled long and hard while the evidence was being heard. While there were no earth-shattering revelations, the public hearings were certainly a valuable exercise for us, in terms of what went on during the boom.
It is clear that the inquiry began far too late in the parliamentary cycle. However, what is inexplicable is how we, and apparently the committee members, have been presented with the news that the report had somehow mutated into something of biblical length, and with all the coherence of a drunken sailor.
No matter what sort of miracles Labour senator, Susan O’Keeffe, or Fine Gael TD, Eoghan Murphy, achieve in the editing process, this report will always be viewed as flawed.
This is another example of our national impotence in establishing our mistakes, how we might correct them, and how people can be made responsible for their actions.
Funny, though, we have a general election approaching, and we know that when it comes to electioneering, our government, Fine Gael in particular, will be breathtaking in their campaign efficiency.
They will borrow ideas from the US, pay dollops of cash to international consultants, learn from the mistakes of past campaigns and ruthlessly implement their plan of attack. It’s a pity that five-year electoral burst doesn’t extend into other areas.
Now, excuse me, I’ve a red crocodile handbag I need to go and browse around.
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