Cianan Brennan: Not much accountability at Oireachtas Finance Committee

Michael McGrath contrives to defend the indefensible while we are told new Garda HQ is not too small, yet the opposite is the case, says Cianan Brennan

There are myriad problems with the move of An Garda Siochana's headquarters in Harcourt Square (pictured) to Military Road. Photo: Moya Nolan

There were two hearings of the Oireachtas Finance Committee last Wednesday. The first you may have heard about. It saw a very well-briefed Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath deal with the fall-out regarding the salary of Health supremo Robert Watt.

The noise around that particular saga reached fever pitch recently as it emerged that Mr Watt has benefited from not one, but two, additional pay rises surplus to his €81,000 raise in the past four months.

Mr Watt, the secretary-general of Health, finally admitted two weeks ago that he is taking the full wage he is entitled to, despite having said he would waive his salary bump until the country’s economy had improved. We must assume it has done so. Next October his pay packet will increase once more to over €300,000.

Mr McGrath, who signed off on Mr Watt’s salary hike, said that the issue of whether or not Mr Watt had ever actually waived the higher salary is none of his business.

Leaving that aside, the second hearing of the committee was equally interesting in what it said about how Ireland is run, and it’s unlikely you heard anything about it.

It saw the Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, Patrick O’Donovan, discuss a number of property projects (the OPW has responsibility for managing the State’s property portfolio) which the Irish Examiner has monitored closely.

Mr O’Donovan was questioned by Sinn Féin’s Mairead Farrell regarding a recent letter to the leaders of our political parties, from the former managing valuer of the OPW Allen Morgan. The letter discussed a property management system he described as “dysfunctional and wasteful” which he said had led to hundreds of millions of euro of taxpayers’ money being wasted.

The minister said that he takes those allegations seriously but said that none of what was being alleged is new, and much of it is historical. Since he has been appointed, the OPW has moved in a proactive manner to deal with its legacy issues, he said. ‘Legacy’ is a very loaded word, it translates broadly as ‘not my fault’.

Ms Farrell followed up regarding one project which is not historical, the €86.6m move of An Garda Síochána from its Dublin command HQ at
Harcourt Square to a new purpose-built facility on Military Road in Kilmainham, one only necessitated in the first place because the OPW didn’t buy the current office for a vastly reduced price when it had the chance in the 2010s.

There are myriad problems with the Military Road move, but one of the most striking is that the new build is significantly undersized for what it’s being asked to do. It is too small. Not so, according to the minister. 

“Military Road is not too small. It is important not to believe everything you read in the papers,” he said.

Military Road is on schedule, target, and budget. It is not too small.

This is a remarkable statement because it is on the public record, repeatedly and verifiably from the gardaí and the OPW, that the new build is almost comically undersized. It is being built for the numbers of gardaí that frequented Harcourt Square in 2016, which was roughly 850.

Here’s just one example: “The total staff complement in Harcourt Square when this commitment was entered into in 2016 was in the order of 800 to 900. However, including civilian staff there has since been approximately a 50% increase in the numbers concerned and the relocation requirement has risen to some 1,300 to1,400 staff.” 

That’s the chair of the OPW Maurice Buckley writing to the Department of Justice in early 2021. “This development … in simple terms has always been intended as a one-for-one replacement accommodating the 2016 numbers in Harcourt Square. The purpose of the project, therefore, was never intended to become the accommodation solution for all emerging staff expansion in the intervening period.”

Cianan Brennan. In the case of Robert Watt’s pay and the Military Road build, we have seen precious little accountability. Photo: Moya Nolan

You can read a few things into that statement — that a multi-million euro State construction project has been planned with seemingly low levels of foresight, which doesn’t allow for future expansion of the workforce of a national policing body, for one. 

That the OPW doesn’t believe that said poor planning is its fault, is another. Most importantly, the building will be too small.

If you’re curious, the surplus gardaí are to be housed in a series of overspill properties around the city — at least six of them. How those properties are being paid for isn’t yet known, while many specialist gardaí are less than enthused about their accommodation prospects.

So how on Earth was the minister with responsibility for this project able to tell an Oireachtas committee under parliamentary privilege that effectively black is white? He is wrong about something so verifiable. 

In the end, it comes down to accountability. In the case of Mr Watt’s pay and the Military Road build, we have seen precious little of it. Surely we, as citizens and taxpayers, are entitled to better?