The speech at Washington DC’s Georgetown University by former Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, has attracted some comment since it was reported last week in the Financial Times and Irish Times. Much of that comment has focussed upon just about everything about from its contents. It is a well drafted and cogently argued analysis of the crisis that befell both Ireland and the EU and well worth reading in full: Speech By Fmr Taoiseach B Cowen – 21.03.12
Given the venue and context it is evident that this was meant as a low key, considered and informed contribution and not as a political foray. While I think it will, in time, be seen as an important analysis of the situtaion from 2007/08 onwards. I also think it is important to note how the former taoiseach took the opportunity present to talk Ireland up and to touts for business and investment for Ireland. This is particularly evident in the final paragraphs of the speech:
“I believe Ireland is one of the best locations in the world to establish and to grow a business. This is not just rhetoric but is reflected in the rapid on-going overseas investment which is occurring in Ireland. Ireland is not just open for business but as, I believe, any independent assessmentwould indicate it is among the best places in Europe to start and grow an international business. This will ultimately pay off for our citizens. Indeed all of the fundamental strengths which prior to the crisis meant that Ireland had one of the highest growth rates of GNP per capita among advanced countries for a very long period are still in place and in many respects our advantages have improved in terms of increased cost competitiveness.”
My Evening Herald column from Saturday March 31st arguing that breaks in Dáil sittings are necessary and beneficial
Leinster House
On Thursday Dáil Éireann takes a break for the Easter recess. It is set to return on April 18th. Cue a hue and cry from opposition TDs and assorted political hacks demanding that the Dáil return sooner or sit longer or whatever.
These protests are not only regular and predictable, they are just as entertaining as they are pointless.
These sham battles seem to be based on the notion that the more the Dáil sits the better. Really? It is hard to sustain that argument when you look at the household charge fiasco.
In its recent annual report the Government commends itself for increasing the number of sitting days, saying that the Dáil sat for about 127 days, roughly 36/37weeks, in its first year.
According to the government’s calculations this is a 44% increase on the number of sitting days in the first year of the previous Dáil (2007/08).
A major achievement you’d think. Though not quiet as impressive when compared with the years 2008/09 and 2009/10 when the Dáil actually sat for 35 weeks per annum.
But what’s a week or two between old sworn enemies?
It is the old public sector problem: measuring inputs, not outcomes. Successive governments have been guilty of it.
The Government’s legislative programme should be driven by the number of pieces of legislation it wishes to pass into law, not by a need to produce bits of legislation to fill up some allotted time slot.
TDs should not be apologising for the Dáil not sitting in plenary session over the next three weeks.
Yes, various Oireachtas committees will be sitting during that time – but something else should also be happening. Something that is, in my opinion, far more important.
Politicians and their policy advisers should be availing of this break to do something they rarely get to do: think and prepare.
There is a story, probably apochryphal, about a Minister walking along a corridor in his Department when he spies a senior policy maker sitting back with his feet up on the desk. “Have you no work to do?” asks the Minister, “I have…” comes the reply “…I am doing it now, I’m thinking”.
These short breaks in Dáil sittings afford Ministers and senior officials some time and space away from debates, motions and parliamentary questions to think and to focus on other matters in their departments – things that don’t often make the headlines at Leader’s questions.
Central to this is standing back and taking stock of where they are.
When the Dáil is sitting a surprising amount of time in a government Department can be taken up in answering TDs questions alone, particularly when its that Minister’s turn at oral PQs.
Parliamentary accountability and scrutiny is an essential part of the democratic process, but you also need time to go and effectively do all those things that the parliament will subsequently want to scrutinise.
But if the need for this “thinking” time is important for Ministers and officials is it absolutely vital for an opposition and its support teams.
The Minister has a full time team of 8 or more in his office to fetch, carry and prepare – plus those other senior officials along the corridor to advise and research – the opposition spokesman is often depending on two or three.
But it is not a matter of resources. While the Dáil is sitting the agenda is set by the government. The opposition is usually just reacting to it – or reacting to the media reaction to events.
This is not always a bad thing, especially for an opposition that is effective at harrying the administration. This was the case in the latter half of the last government. The only crumb of comfort it got from the polls was when the Dáil was in recess. When it was in session both oppositions parties’ ratings went up, especially Labour’s.
But an opposition also needs to set the agenda too. It takes a lot of preparation and planning for an opposition to get the focus on its agenda. These breaks can often provide that space.
Politicians on both sides should acknowledge this fact. Who knows, maybe the reporters who cover the Dáil and actually benefit from the break might even credit them for it.
My take on Fianna Fáil’s 73ú Ard Fheis which is taking place in the RDS this weekend (March 2 & 3). This piece was written for the Evening Herald of March 3rd
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For as long as I can recall Fianna Fáil Árd Fheiseana were the party conferences where the emphasis was more on the “partying” than the “conferencing”.
They were great social and political occasions where activists from all strands of society, right across the country, gathered to celebrate their membership of the party.
There they rallied; networked; socialised and renewed friendships with colleagues from other constituencies.
To be brutally honest, for many – myself included – the formal debates and motions were incidental to the core objective: discussing politics with old friends and hearing the leader’s speech.
While tonight’s address, the first by Michael Martin as leader, will remain the highpoint of this weekend’s Árd Fheis, it will come at the end of two days of serious and intense debate about the party’s future.
The issue before the Árd Fheis is that stark: the very survival of what was once the greatest modern political movement in Western Europe.
Over these two days – yesterday and today – at the RDS, members are deciding a slate of major reforms on how the party is organised and run.
Key to these is the move away from the representative/delegate model for candidate selection in favour of the One Member One Vote system (OMOV). In other words; to allow every active member in every cumann to have an equal say in selecting candidates and officers.
It is resonant of the crucial debate the British Labour Party had at their 1993 Conference. That was the year they ended the Trade Union block vote and adopted OMOV.
It was not an easy battle for them. The move to reform and modernise had been delayed for almost 14 years as they tore themselves apart with internal wrangling and infighting.
The result was three stunning defeats and three terms of powerless opposition.
Only by reforming their internal structures and systems did Labour allow itself to reconnect with its membership and, more importantly, with the people. After 14 years of irrelevance “New” Labour began to get in touch with the cares and concerns of the British people and respond effectively to them.
That is what Michael Martin hopes to achieve with this Árd Fheis. While the events of the past few days may have moved the focus slightly away from that goal, he was determined to shift it back as soon as the members start to gather in the RDS last night.
And a fair few of them gathered; with over 4000 members registered to attend by the middle of the week.
It is an indication of how serious the party’s grassroot members are about renewing their party. The number of people running for positions is another. Contest for the 20 nationally elected places on the Fianna Fáil Árd Comhairle has never been keener, with many bright, young first time candidates.
The same applies to several of the other senior positions, though the contest for the positions of Party Vice President was made marginally less intense with the withdrawals of two former party big hitters: Mary Hanafin and Éamon Ó Cuiv.
The weekend’s debates are not confined to organisational matters. The Clár contains some motions which, if passed, would herald interesting shifts in policy, including ones on gay marriage, gay adoption ending the regime of TDs’ and Senators expenses’ and reducing the voting age to 16.
There is also a slew of the more traditional Árd Fheis motions, including some Dublin centred resolutions calling for the reinstatement of the Ballymun Regeneration, Grangegorman DIT Campus and Metro North projects.
So, a great deal of serious work will be done by those gathering in Ballsbridge, but be certain too that there some socialising and banter as the faithful show that while they may be down, the party is by no means finished.
Derek Mooney was a Ministerial Adviser 2004 – 2010 and a Public Affairs Consultant and Speechwriter since the 90s
My column in Saturday’s Evening Herald (Jan 28 2012) on Micheal Martin’s first year a leader of Fianna Fáil
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A year ago this week {or “today” if published on February 26} Michael Martin sought and won the toughest and possibly most thankless job in Irish politics today: leader of Fianna Fáil.
Looking back over the past year there must have been moments when he felt he hadn’t so much won the prize, as been landed with it. Yet he did win it.
The manner in which he took a stand and challenged for the leadership helped him throw off his previous reputation as an ultra cautious politician who preferred to kick problems to committees rather than taking tough decisions.
On becoming leader [this day one year ago] he found himself at the helm of a demoralised and dissolute party facing into an election for which it was woefully unprepared.
The once great election winning machine that had been Fianna Fáil limped and staggered its way over the line with its new leader’s energetic and impassioned debate performances as rare high points in an otherwise horrendous campaign.
The result was best described by a northern colleague of mine as the greatest political punishment beating ever. The public was not just disillusioned and angry with Fianna Fáil and its Ministers: it had no interest in its views or opinions.
While his first full year in the job has been tough, it could actually have been worse. At the outset many pundits thought the very best he could hope for was stemming the tide of Fianna Fáil’s decline.
Recent opinion polls and the unexpected second place showing in the Dublin West by-election point to the party not just halting the decline, but even reversing it a bit. But there will be no one around Martin popping the champagne corks for a long while yet.
While the party’s prospects may look a tad better now than a year ago: its future is still by no means assured. The party has a long way to go before the public will be ready to listen to what it has to say.
One of Martin’s successes, if this is the right word, has been to get the party’s membership to grasp the new political reality that Fianna Fáil can no longer take its continued existence or relevance as inevitable.
This was no easy lesson for the party to accept. In some ways it is still a work in progress. While there is much talk of reforming both how the party is run and how it develops policy, these have yet to be implemented.
Hopefully, the reconnection Martin has making between the leadership and the members through his constituency visits and personal engagement should enable him to drive through a meaningful reform package.
But it is not as if everything has gone his way. While the right decision was eventually made; the very public “will they/won’t they” row on running a candidate for theArastook its toll. Likewise, Martin’s sometimes over wordy and earnest contributions at Leader’s Questions in the Dáil have not helped convey the idea of a strong leader.
This latter criticism is often attributed to his need to attack on two fronts at once. Martin is not just targeting the government; he is also targeting the other opposition alternative in Sinn Féin.
Another explanation is that Sinn Féin now has a much bigger back office and research resource than Fianna Fáil. Addams and Co may be reading from scripts, but they are well crafted and written ones
It is not as if his task will get any easier either.
In the coming weeks Martin faces the prospect of dealing with the fallout of the Mahon Tribunal’s report. While there is no confirmed date for its publication, there is much speculation that it may be released just before Fianna Fail’s Árd Fheis at the beginning of March.
Talk about bad timing.
Whatever happens, Martin’s own position is secure. He has from now until the Locals and Europeans in 2014, at least, to show that he can lead the party to recover some of the public trust and confidence it lost.
After one full year, the toughest job in Irish politics is going to get even tougher.
Hadn’t posted on here in a few weeks – catching up on missed items today. This is the most current of the three blogs posted today. It was originally intended for today’s Evening Herald
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As far as I am aware the only eponymous Irish Rule of Politics was named for its creator, the much missed political journalist Gerald Barry.
The rule roughly states that “every leader of the opposition will, be at some point, be hailed as the worst ever leader of the opposition.” Its strength lies not just in its inherent truth; but also to the fact that it applies in almost every jurisdiction.
Look at poor Ed Miliband. How he manages to drag himself into Parliament after reading reports of backbench murmuring and discontent in that morning’s papers is beyond me.
Yet he does, thus highlighting the fundamental truth that scorn and opprobrium goes with the job of being opposition leader. Maybe Enda Kenny could give Ed some pointers on this
But I digress. While the US has numerous rules and laws of politics, Gerald Barry’s is the only one I can think of in the Irish context, or at least it was until now.
Over the weekend the Social affairs Minister, Joan Burton reminded us that there is a second immutable rule of Irish politics, even if it hasn’t had a name up to now.
This Second law states that “large government majorities can lead to disaster and indiscipline”. It so might have been drafted with Minister Burton’s tactics in mind that it probably should be named for her: The Burton Second Law of Inverse Stability.
It’s most notable occurrence to date was during the 1977 – 1981 Fianna Fail majority Government. In 1997 Jack Lynch returned Fianna Fail to office with a twenty seat majority.
Two years later a variety of backbench insurrections on issues from the Farmer’s Levy to British Army border flyovers had so weakened and undermined his leadership that he lost two by-elections in his own back yard and would see his leadership ended by December of 1979.
While at first sight it would appear that big majorities would leave a government comfortably placed to win Dáil votes, the counter intuitive truth is otherwise.
Such big majorities allow backbenchers the scope to flex their muscles and run risks they would not dare try if they thought their actions might herald an election and the loss of their own seat.
Enter Minister Joan Burton. Almost since her appointment to government she has erred on the side of expressing her own strongly views rather than merely defer to the broader FG/Lab consensus.
She has some entitlement to feel aggrieved. She did the heavy lifting as the party’s Finance spokesperson in opposition. She carved out a separate position for the Labour party on the economy, differentiating itself from Fine Gael.
She played a vital part in securing the Labour swing, only to find herself having to standby while Labour effectively disavowed her policies, not in favour of Fine Gael’s but, in favour of those of the outgoing Government.
A hard pill to swallow, made harder by seeing front bench colleagues leap frog her into Cabinet.
It would seem her response has been to work the Labour back benches and strive to speak more for them than for her FG colleagues. A good strategy for positioning yourself within the party: not a great one when it comes to conveying the impression of strong and cohesive government.
While her comments on a second bailout may not send the markets into a spin or (regrettably) make President Sarkozy’s political headaches any worse, it will not endear her to her party leader or Cabinet colleagues.
It also sends a signal to others to feel free to do the same. Clearly, with three of them jettisoning the Labour Whip so far, labour backbenchers do not need much encouragement, but for how much longer can or will Fine Gael be prepared to tolerate this?
Which brings me back to the issue of rules and laws. Newton’s Third Law of Motion states: “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. It is just as true in politics.
While they have been disciplined up to now, I suspect it won’t be too long until we see some Fine Gaelers feeling the same need to unburden themselves and say their piece.
Maybe we will then have our third law of politics: Varadkar’s Third Law of Political Momentum?
This was written for last Friday’s Evening Herald (January 13th) but, unluckily, did not make the cut.
What is it with some American troops? Why, even in the aftermath of Abu Ghraib and other scandals, do they still seem incapable of acting with restraint and showing even basic common decency?
The video, shown on the TV news last night, of a group of US Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban insurgents once again raises the issue of their suitability to serve on peace support operations outside theUSA.
It is not as if the guys involved were raw recruits or conscripts: these were Marines: the supposed cream of the American military. Their motto: “Semper Fidelis” means always faithful, presumably that includes fidelity to their own three core values: Honour, Courage Commitment.
The Marine Corps manual says of the first value: Honour: “Respect for others is essential. Marines are expected to act responsibly in a manner befitting the title they’ve earned.”
Clearly the actions of the four Marines who appeared on our screens last night fell well short of that. Indeed that dishonour extends beyond the men filmed to include those who gleefully recorded the sorry episode, probably for future broadcast at private gatherings stateside.
None of this can be excused by the stresses and strains of their task or the coarseness of their environment. It is an example of dehumanising of the enemy; of treating those who are fighting against as less than human.
This is not an attitude that can be tolerated. It is not in the Afgahnis interest and neither is it in theUS’s either.
While the Americans serve inAfghanistanas part of a UN mandated NATO coordinated mission, their presence has a greater and wider significance.
The noted American playwright and peace activist Eve Ensler put it best after her 2003 visit to the region: “Afghanistan is a test case,” “We may never recover the trust of the Muslim world . . . if theU.S.does not deliver security, substantial aid, and reconstruction . . . [and] fulfil our promises.”
Those who support the mission in Afghanistan (and I include myself in that) can point to a number of positives it has already helped achieve: new motorways and buildings; 4 million children now attending school, including many for the first time; a growing economy, a new constitution, and the return of more than 2.5 million refugees.
The action of the Marines not only undermines these achievements, it seriously dents the already precarious support of the Afghan people for the mission’s continuing presence. Their despicable actions potentially put their comrades at greater risk.
This sorry dehumanising episode again raises serious questions about the institutional ability of American troops to serve on peace support or quasi policing operations in regions or communities with different cultures and traditions.
It is not something new. I recall a mid rankingUKofficer recounting his experience with American officers under his command on a multi-lateral mission in sub Saharan Africa. He told me that he had a tough time even getting them to take off their mirrored sunglasses when talking with locals.
He told me of his frustration in having to constantly tell the Americans that this was vital to build up trust with the locals. The local culture demanded that you be able to look into someone’s eyes when they spoke with you. You have to treat those you are there to protect as your equal, not as your inferior – and not as your enemy.
It is something that now comes instinctively to our troops serving overseas. Perhaps this is in part due to our sense memory of being a former colony. We can empathise with the plight of the local communities and the hardship they endure while retaining our impartiality and commitment to our mission.
It is something that can be taught. Significantly it is taught here at the UN Training School in the Curragh Camp. The UN School runs United Nations Military Observers and Staff Officers courses.
While the offending Marines will probably be drummed out of the army, perhaps their senior commanding officers might be sent to the Curragh for some basic lessons in how to get their people to start showing respect.
A copy of my Evening Herald column from December 28th 2011
I suspect most of us will be glad to see the back of 2011. As we prepare for its successor we will do so in the hope it will be better and with the traditional list of good intentions for 2012.
There are many things I hope to have the discipline and self will to both do and not to do in the year ahead. Fortunately, one of those things is not giving up cigarettes as I have never had that particular nasty habit.
I don’t smoke. I have tried it a few times, but I have never taken to it. Maybe this helps explain why I have never understood its allure. Sadly, I have seen the damage they can cause close up.
Just under ten months ago my Dad, Fergus, died following a four year battle with lung cancer. He had fought it bravely, but eventually his heart gave out. Not helped by the fact he spent decades smoking 40 a day, un-tipped ones at that.
I have an uncle who still smokes despite the damage it has already done to his health. I have a favourite aunt and various other relatives and friends who I would dearly love to see quit cigarettes.
Clearly, I am not unique in any of this, but I make the point as a background to why I think the recent increase in tobacco duty was a bad idea.
I was chatting with my Mum just before Michael Noonan rose to give his Budget speech. The wanted to see an increase in tobacco duty as she felt it might deter others from going through what my Dad had endured and also help stop her brother from continuing to smoke.
While she was happy with the Budget increase, I fear her hope that increasing the price of a packet of cigarettes by 5c, 10c or 50c will reduce the amount my uncle (or anyone else) smokes will not be realised.
I wish it would, but logic and factual analysis makes it increasingly clear that it won’t.
This is not just me picking conclusions out of thin air. It is the conclusion reached by the Revenue Commissioners’ Economics of Tobacco .report published last February.
It estimated that about 20% of cigarettes consumed inIrelandare not taxed here, ie, they come into the market illegally via smuggling. It also says this figure is rising. Some suggest their estimate is conservative and is probably somewhere nearer a third.
Whatever the precise figure, there are two things we know. We have the highest excise on tobacco products inEuropeand we have increasing levels of black market sales of smuggled tobacco.
The relationship between these two facts is so blindingly obvious that even the Department of Finance has been moved to admit it
Replying to a Dáil question last October, the Junior Minister for Public Expenditure & Reform stated that “The average price of a packet of cigarettes here is €8.65, whereas inHungary it is €2.06… raising tax on tobacco products further would simply encourage the illicit trade..”
So why go and do precisely that? Why indulge in a gesture that not only flies in the face of the facts, but also only serves to benefit the lowest in our society.
Some 218 million smuggled cigarettes were seized in 2009. This includes the 120m intercepted at Greenore Port, Co Louth: the largest ever seizure in the EU. But we still only seize a fraction of the illicit trade. Countless millions of cigarettes, including fake illegally produced ones with prohibitively high tar contents, are making it on to the streets.
This smuggling is funding the activities of criminal and dissident terrorist gangs to the tune of probably €3million plus per week.
Meanwhile the Government loses about half a billion Euros a year in lost taxes that could be used to fund treatments that might actually combat nicotine addiction.
The sad truth is that there is no one simple action government can take to stop people from smoking: this includes plain packaging (a topic I will return to).
The sooner we grow up and acknowledge this fact the sooner we will start to really address the problem.
This is the first budget since Ruairi Quinn’s 1996 one where Fianna Fail have been in the position of having to respond as an opposition.
Only a handful of the remaining Fianna Fail TDs have any experience of replying to a budget statement on the hoof, like this.
Back then they had both the numbers in the chamber and in their research office to be able to respond robustly. Back then, they were also not hampered by seeng their economic strategy being implemented by the government.
In these circumstances, the party’s spokesperson, Sean Fleming, did reasonably well. His accountancy background enabled him to focus in on some of the finer and more damaging points that appeared in the tables, but somehow managed not to make it into the Minister’s script.
Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald gave one of her best Dail performances to date. Whereas Fleming stuck with the detail, she concentrated on the politics, excoriating and needling Fine Gael and Labour backbenchers for reneging on their election promises.
Over recent years we have been moving from the traditional westminster model of budgets where the finance minister goes into a self imposed silence or purdah in advance of the statement, to a european one where large elements emerge into the public arena in advance.
While recent budgets have seen their share of advance kite flying, this one brought the craft to new and dizzying heights.
It is all about the management of expectations. It’s an old trick. Get your people spinning that medical cards might be hit, and then hope the public will break out the champagne, or possibly the Babycham given our straightened times, when they are not.
So the theory goes. In this case the audience was not so much the people at home, but the massed ranks of backbench government TDs who would like to be two term Deputies not one termers.
This may account for the very muted applause after Minister Howlin resumed his seat. Though this may just as much been due to how inappropriate and ill judged the loud cheers and fulsome applause the Fianna Fail deputies gave to their recent budgets seems now.
An Taoiseach’s national address was well intentioned but badly executed.
To his credit; from the moment he became Taoiseach, Enda Kenny has shown that he realises the importance of talking to people. He has demonstrated regularly that he knows the job of Taoiseach is not just the traditional one of government Chairman or Chief.
He understands that it is also that of the “confidence giver in chief”, particularly at times of crisis like this. The person who tells the rest of us what is happening and how he and his team have a plan to get us through the difficulties.
Television has not been his friend. Neither have the formal set pieces: Ard Fheis speeches etc. He has been more comfortable in informal situations, particularly those where his words and message are delivered unmediated: live to a flesh and blood audience.
For all these reasons, last night’s TV “Address to the Nation” was going to be a big ask. The fact that it was billed as the most important address he would ever give, the “speech of his life”, did not help.
In the event, the speech did not succeed in achieving its desired result.
A speech is not about offering a litany of facts and figures, it is about putting across a clear message. The Taoiseach acknowledged this truth in his address saying that he was “outlining the Government’s strategy.”
The pity is that while this may have been the aim, the content and delivery failed to convey any sense of strategy or coherent plan.
The address should not just have been another element of the package of budget speeches: but an opportunity to set out a vision of where we are going and how we can get there together.
It could have been a vision of the kind of Ireland the Taoiseach wants to see in place by 2016, the centenary of the Easter Rising and an exposition of how he sees us achieving that.
Instead of the expected “state of the nation” we got a curiously cold and passionless presentation that omitted both vision and purpose. A bland party political broadcast that seemed, in part, to be an attempt to explain both why The government was now implementing policies it had opposed and why it had abandoned promises made only nine months ago.
It was less an “address to the nation” and more an apology from the leader of Fine Gael.
As the Taoiseach and his advisers are now starting to realise there are some very obvious risks with such addresses.
The expectations were high.
People expect to be better informed and maybe even more confident after the broadcast than they were before. Looking at the online commentary as I write this, I do not see this being the emerging consensus. Most politically unaligned posters appear to be seeing the address as a “wasted opportunity”.
But there are other risks too. The leader comes on TV to say that things will get better… but, they don’t. As a consequence we lose faith in them.
The other worry is that the Leader comes on TV to say that things are even worse that he had suggested they were… the opposition have a field day using his own words to attack him and his popularity plummets
Though I have no firm evidence for thinking this, I believe that these were the two of the key factors behind Brian Cowen’s reluctance to make a similar address in 2008/2009. The one issue Cowen would not have had to address if he had chosen to make such a speech then is the crisis facing the EU and the Euro.
In my view the Taoiseach made a mistake in not devoting more of his script to this crucial issue. Not only did the EU section amount to less than 10% of the total text, the section was bland and failed to seriously address any of the issues facing us.
In other EU countries they are talking of having “less than a week” to save the Euro. Within the coming days we will learn more of the Merkel/Sarkozy plan to fundamentally change how the EU and the Euro function, but here our Taoiseach reduces the matter to almost an afterthought in his keynote address to the nation.
It kind of sums up the whole exercise, well intentioned, but poorly done.
My column from the Evening Herald (2nd November 2011) on the discovery by the Department of Finance that we owe €3.6Bn less than we thought; due to an accounting error in the Government’s figures.
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Wednesday November 02 2011
IN one of his early routines the American comedian Bob Newhart explained how he had to turn to comedy when his career in accountancy came to an abrupt end. He described how he had, as a fledgling accountant, developed his own theory of accountancy which stated that getting within 10pc of the total was enough.
While the idea did not catch on with his bosses in the 1960s, it appears the theory has been rediscovered and redeployed in the Department of Finance.
Finding that we have €3.6bn more that we had is a lot better than finding we have €3.6bn less — but don’t you just feel that if it had been the latter the cuts target for this December’s Budget would have doubled.
At this point I had intended to explain the discrepancy. Having spent about six years in Government reading and dealing with Government estimates and balance sheets I felt sure I was up to the job.
But after about 45 minutes of reading statements from various agencies my head melted and I needed to lie down in a darkened room.
Those who understand these things better, tell me that this has all got something to do with the amount being rolled over like a Lottery prize that isn’t won, though it is possible that I got the analogy wrong.
Liabilities
The one thing I know is that the problem stems from confusion between the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) and the Department of Finance.
Up to 1990 only the Minister for Finance could borrow money on behalf of the State. In 1990 that power, along with the responsibility to manage assets and liabilities and negotiate rates on the State’s borrowings, was given to the NTMA.
The NTMA proved itself quickly with savings on the interest paid on our debt roughly equivalent to reducing tax rates by about 10pc.
However, while the authority to borrow and manage the debt was delegated to the NTMA, the responsibility for the accounts and borrowings has always rested with the Minister for Finance and his officials.
There was a change in how the NTMA dealt with the State’s Housing Finance Agency and how it listed their assets and liabilities in its accounts which was not picked up on when the State’s general government debt was calculated.
It is vital that the confusion is cleared up and succinctly explained as soon as possible by the minister and his senior officials in both the Department and the NTMA.
The error is all the more embarrassing as the head of the Finance Department is due to take up an appointment in early 2012 as Ireland’s nominee to the European Court of Auditors.
This organisation is, according to its President , responsible for examining ” … whether financial operations have been properly recorded and disclosed, legally executed and managed so as to ensure economy, efficiency and effectiveness.”
Disciplines
It also raises an interesting general issue regarding the management of government departments. The Irish civil service uses a “generalist model”.
Department officials get a broad experience across a range of disciplines and policy areas. Across their careers, most civil servants can expect to be trained and work in a number of different areas. The benefit of this rotation system is that you get people with a broad vision, enthusiasm and wide experience of varying sectors.
Moving high flyers between sectors and departments helps stem the “it’s the way we have always done it here” mentality. But, it also has a downside. There are fewer specialists in those areas where they are specifically qualified and some posts that should require specialist skills and training are filled by people without them.
It’s just like Sir Humphrey said in a classic Yes Minister episode: “Well obviously I’m not a trained lawyer, or I wouldn’t have been in charge of the legal unit.”
derekmooney.ie 