Fatcats go from one big role to another.. and we pay the price
WHEN you get to a certain level in Irish public life, you can’t really fail and you very rarely lose.
You just move from one highly-paid job to another until you retire to spend more time with a big pile of taxpayer’s money.
Just look at the latest revelations from RTE about golden parachutes, huge severance payments and big, big salaries for people who do not – by any stretch of the imagination – appear to have done a good job.
Is that troubled organisation a one-off? Or does it just have a higher profile and what we are seeing in Montrose happens at pretty much every State and semi-state body in Ireland?
In most developed countries, the most talented and driven people strive to succeed in business, in the private sector, coming up with world-beating ideas themselves, or steering major corporations to success.
We do have people like that in Ireland, Michael O’leary of Ryanair would be a good example and there are more, like the selfmade billionaire brothers from
Limerick, Patrick and John Collison.
But mostly, in Ireland, the smartest, or the most ambitious or just the cutest, know where the real paydays are located – and that’s in the public or semi-state sector.
Seriously lads, push your way to the very top of a big Irish organisation funded by taxpayer money and you have basically won the lottery.
End up at the very top of the health service, or running a utility or a major public service body and you just can’t lose. Fail to meet even basic targets? Preside over years of malaise, bad services or stupendous waste?
No problem. Have another big job there, and maybe a half-a-million retirement package at the end.
Sure it’s not real money. It’s just a big bucket of taxpayer cash and there’s nobody around to ask awkward questions (mainly because they’re all dipping in themselves).
There’s something of a club at the very top, with a small, revolving cast of characters moving from one big job to another and often with no visible sign of success.
It’s something the next Government has to get a handle on.
Get the best man or woman for the important jobs – and just not the usual suspects with friends in the right places.
And don’t just throw money at people. At the very least, any payments should be linked to actual performance.
If you are running the HSE for a few years and our hospitals are still jammed with people on trollies, it’s not a bonus or a golden parachute you should be getting, but a big dirty boot out the door.