Category: Civil Service

Minister for Finance puts interests of Kevin Cardiff before interests of Irish people

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan sympathising with the ‘ordeal’ that Kevin Cardiff faces today when he appears before the Committee on Budgetary Control of the European Parliament.

I’d like to wish him all the best. It’s difficult to go under scrutiny in any parliament and for somebody from Ireland who hasn’t experience of the European Parliamentary system it’s going to be a testing day for him.

I think, actually, of all the people that were nominated to serve on the European Court of Auditors by Irish governments over the years, Kevin Cardiff is the most qualified for the job.

This statement by the Minister sends a clear message to the Irish people.

I am a member of the ruling elite of this country. Kevin Cardiff is also a member of our exclusive club and therefore I will be giving his interests priority over the interests of the Irish people.

Copy to:
Minister Noonan

Response of Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton to the Cardiff Scandal

The Week in Politics: Sunday 6th November

Clearly a mistake was made in the Dept. of Finance, the issue is what was the seriousness of that mistake and was he culpulable.

I think the general view and certainly it’s Michael Noonan’s view is that he was not culpulable, this was a mistake in how numbers were put together.

This wasn’t an issue of culpulabe failure in pursuing the duties of his office.

These are the words of an incredibly stupid man or the words of a man who has no capability whatsoever of dealing with unpalatable facts.

The Minister goes on:

I think in terms of accountability, we do need to have genuine accountability I think the tradition has not been of pinning responsibility on individuals who are responsible for certain performance and then holding them to account and tying payments to their performance, that’s not a tradition.

But as Brendan Howlin has said it’s going to become a tradition because there’s going to be clear performance indicators set for every head of agency to be accountable so this will be a sea change in the way we measure performance and hold people to account.

In other word;

We don’t have a tradition of accountability in this country but from now on we are going to make people accountable.

I’ve been listening to this bullshit promise for decades.

Copy to:

The Minister

Economist, Colm McCarthy’s response to the Kevin Cardiff scandal.

It was just a classification error.

I had a lot of sympathy for Kevin Cardiff fielding questions from a posse of politicians on the highest horses that they could locate.

It was an unedifying spectacle.

Colm McCarthy may be an expert on economics but he clearly knows nothing about the concept of accountability.

Minister Howlin's response to the Cardiff affair

Brendan Howlin’s reaction to the Cardiff scandal.

Well, the Government made a decision, I have known Kevin since I went into the department.

He is a most competent, able, courteous and diligent public servant.

He has been involved his whole life in the public service. The Government has made the recommendation.

Our understanding from the soundings we’ve heard back is that there is no resistance to his appointment.

We expect it to go through in the normal way.

Translation:

Kevin is a fine fellow, we’re on first name terms.

The Government has made a decision and there’s obviously no objection to that decision.

Yes, the peasants are making some noise, as they do, but that can be safely ignored.

Cardiff Affair: We can only hope the EU puts a stop to our gombeen politicians

For any Irish citizen who, for even for the briefest moment, thought that this government would be different from what went before need only look at the Kevin Cardiff affair.

The whole affair confirms that Ireland is an irredeemably rotten state run by an arrogant, self serving ruling elite.

We need only focus on one event where Cardiff is concerned – he was head of the Dept of Finance when an accounting error of €3.6 billion was made.

In a functioning democracy there would be no further discussion. In a functioning democracy he would have been given a few hours to consider his position and if reluctant to take the honourable route he would have been sacked forthwith.

In Ireland, he will be awarded lottery amounts in pension and lump sum payments and offered a plum job in Europe.

This not unusual, it is how things are done in Ireland. We saw it with disgraced Central Bankers, we saw with disgraced FAS executive officers; we saw it with disgraced politicians.

Such rewards for incompetence are an integral part of Irish culture.

This scandal is almost a carbon copy of the Judge O’Flaherty/Sheedy scandal of eleven years ago.

Judge O’Flaherty had been nominated as Ireland’s representative to the European Investment Bank by then Finance Minister, Charlie McCreevy.

Despite massive public anger and an admission by McCreevy that it was the wrong thing to do the then government pushed ahead with its plans.

The dismissive arrogance of the then government was only stopped when it came into conflict with the high standards of accountability common in European countries.

The EU effectively told the Irish government to take a hike and bring their judge with them.

This government is also determined to press ahead with the appointment of Cardiff despite widespread objections and anger.

The Irish people can only hope that, once again, the Europeans will intervene and put a stop to the gombeen activities of our politicians.

Exactly what you would expect in your typical banana republic

The €3.6 billion accounting error made by some incompetent civil servant is exactly what can be expected in your typical banana republic.

The announcement that a special session of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will be held tomorrow to look into the matter is exactly what is to be expected in your typical banana republic.

The Committee, which has no power whatsoever to make anybody accountable, will ask stupid, pointless questions.

The civil servants will respond with stupid, pointless answers before everybody heads off for lunch – at the taxpayer’s expense.

Exactly what you would expect in your typical banana republic.

State sponsored legal rackets

A United Nations committee on torture has described as stunning the high number of Nigerians whose applications for refugee status are refused by Ireland (Nine News).

The Secretary General of the Dept. of Justice, Sean Aylward, defended the record by saying that there was a legal racket going on in stringing things out.

Could it be that those Nigerians, who Mr. Aylward so casually accuses, are taking their cue from the multitude of legal rackets engaged in by Irish politicians and civil servants?

Never ending tribunals, useless Dail Committee inquiries and numerous police investigations that never seem to end in convictions.

Ruthless and corrupt politicians, bankers and other white collar criminals all rest easy in their beds in the secure knowledge that they and their ill gotten gains are well protected by a myriad of state sponsored legal rackets.

'Royal' taxi regulator grants press interview

The taxi regulator, Kathleen Doyle was, as Pat Kenny put it, ‘flushed out’ by the media and forced to answer questions in connection with the latest scandal involving that industry.

The attitude of this so called public servant was accurately summed up by a caller to a radio show. The Queen of England grants more interviews than our taxi regulator.

In November 2008, in response to another controversy, I wrote about the ‘royal’ tendencies of this particular public servant.

Ms. Doyle is a public servant and therefore, in theory, should be accountable to consumers. There has been a disturbing tendency in recent times for people like Ms. Doyle to adopt a certain royal distance from the great unwashed.

When public servants adopt such arrogant attitudes consumers are entitled to form their own conclusions. Here’s how I imagine Ms. Doyle would address the general peasantry if she ever deigned to dismount from her high horse.

Dear Peasants,

I have been elevated to a position of great importance and therefore feel it is entirely inappropriate that I should deal directly with ordinary people.

I have therefore, at great expense to you, employed a public relations company to deal with all awkward questions from an impertinent media. All questions of a suitably respectful and non awkward nature will be dealt with by my underlings – eventually.

Of course, I do acknowledge and indeed, on rare occasions, feel a degree of gratitude, that my high status, large pay packet, very generous expenses and myriad other perks are all paid for out of your meagre resources.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you the very best of luck in your struggles during the coming economic depression.

I would ask you not to worry too much about my prospects as I am guaranteed regular pay rises, total job security and a very generous pension on completion of my reign.

Yours etc.

(Note to private secretary: Make sure that fellow Duffy gets a copy, it might keep him quiet)

Electoral law? – Whatever you're having yourself

I wasn’t happy with the response I received from the Dept. of Environment, Heritage and Local Government to my complaint regarding Fianna Fail TD Eamon O’Cuiv so I rang seeking further clarification.

Specifically, I wanted to know; what exactly was the role of the department regarding complaints from the public in respect of suspected breaches of electoral law.

Me: As a senior official in the dept responsible for the proper enforcement of electoral law, have you any concerns whatsoever regarding these events?

Official: When it comes to electoral law we’re forever changing the law on electoral issues. Tweaking here and tweaking there and those tweaks always reflect the fact that there’s something not quite right in the electoral law, that’s how we generally respond to these things.

But in terms of the law there are two approaches, there’s what the law is at the moment and what the law could or should be and we do a lot of entertaining about what the law could or should be and in that regard we would be taking on concerns that people might express.

Me: (In growing astonishment at the answers I was getting) Is it a crime to submit a false name on a nomination paper?

Official: Life isn’t as black or white as all that.

Me: It either is a crime or it’s not or you don’t know.

Official: You’re using very emotive words. It’s the nomination process and you’re supposed to use the name you’re ordinarily known by.

Me: Are you not the regulatory body in charge of electoral law?

Official: Yes, we’re in charge of electoral law.

Me: So it’s up to you to investigate?

Official: No.

Me: It’s not? (Accompanied by astonished laughter).

Official: What I’m willing to do here and I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge is that law as made is never perfect, law is an ongoing process and should be reviewed from time to time.

The information gleaned from this official can be summed up as follows.

The department is forever changing electoral law, tweaking here, tweaking there.

(Irish) Electoral law is never static, there’s what it is at the moment and there’s what it could or should be.

The department is in charge of electoral law but doesn’t investigate complaints.

Ireland: An irretrievably corrupt state

I’ve just discovered that a referendum held in 1979 (32 years ago) which asked the people if they wanted to extend the franchise in Senate elections to include all third-level graduates was passed but never implemented.

I rang the Dept. of the Environment to inquire how this was possible in a so called democratic state.

Specifically, I wanted to know if there was any legal/legislative obligation on the part of civil servants or politicians to implement the will of the people as a result of a referendum.

The official I spoke with said, to her knowledge, there was no such obligation, that there was no time limit in which a referendum result had to be legally activated.

I took the following explanation of Article 46 of the Constitution from the Dept’s website.

Under Article 46 of the Constitution, a proposal to amend the Constitution must be introduced in the Dail as a Bill. When the Bill has been passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas (Parliament), it must be submitted to the people for approval as a referendum. If a majority of the votes cast at the referendum are in favour of the proposal, the Bill is signed by the President and the Constitution is amended accordingly.

This is crystal clear; if a majority is in favour the Bill will be passed.

It seems the people who drew up the Constitution never dreamed that our republic would ever degenerate into an irretrievably corrupt state.

They assumed that political and civil service standards of honesty, accountability and professionalism would remain at a level that would not require every possible angle to be legislatively and forensically covered to avoid official trickery.

I’m getting to the point where I feel the need to take a hot, cleansing shower after every news report.

Copy to:

Dept. of Environment