Punchestown debacle – Public trust has been betrayed

“Nobody can stand over what is outlined in the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report,” the Tánaiste told the Dáil yesterday.

But Mary Harney proceeded in terms that essentially suggested that this Government is going to do absolutely nothing about the findings of the report, which concluded that the Departments of Agriculture and Finance ignored guidelines on the expenditure of public finances in relation the funding of the events centre at Punchestown.

The Government seems content to blame the civil servants involved, while the opposition seeks to blame the responsible ministers. In reality, the civil servants and the politicians are to blame for betraying the public trust.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte suggested that civil servants normally facilitate their ministers. That may be, but in our history we have seldom witnessed the kind of blatant favouritism the ministers of this Government have bestowed on their own constituencies, whether it has been in relation to transferring Government departments and agencies, or providing money for extravagant gestures.

Worse, they have bragged about the flagrant bias that they have shown.

The performance of Ms Harney in deputising for the Taoiseach in the Dáil yesterday was little short of pathetic. While she acknowledged that nobody could stand over what happened, she said it is not a resignation issue.

Ms Harney sought to justify what happened on the grounds that politicians on all sides of the house initially welcomed the Punchestown project. Surely they were entitled to assume that the relevant departments had adhered to proper guidelines.

Whether the €15 million spend on the project was wasted or well spent is beside the point. The real issue is that the guidelines have been shamelessly ignored in relation to a project that happens to be in the constituency of Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy.

Having funded the whole project, taxpayers are being asked to provide €60,000 to rent the facilities so that Mr McCreevy can show them to his EU colleagues.

This is no way to run a business, much less a country.