It’s business as usual in our land of the nod and wink
My search for a new job showed that open competition for State roles is a closed shop, writes Shane Ross
MY wife Ruth Buchanan left RTÉ a few years ago. Ever since she has been a happy homemaker. She has absolutely no intention of ever doing another day’s work outside the home. Our paths crossed occasionally between then and now, mostly as ships in the night. The arrangement worked pretty well.
Last year that all changed with Covid-19 and my P45 from an ungrateful electorate! Her life has been more disrupted by these two events than mine.
For the first six months she banished me to my tiny study to write a book. After that I escaped from custody into the adjoining rooms in the house, tiptoeing around this unfamiliar territory.
Initially conversation centred around safe subjects such as Covid or the state of the house and garden. Recently it took a more ominous turn, starting with hints and suggestions.
The ‘situations vacant’ columns in the newspapers were left lying open. When Christmas approached, the message became more urgent. Finally as the tensions of a new year tightened, she cracked, exploding: “When in the name of God are you getting a full-time job?” She set a deadline of January 1. So two weeks ago I began a quasi-serious search.
I knew that the chair of the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) was vacant. And the demanding post of secretary general of the Department of Health had remained unfilled for months. I would wait for the jobs to be advertised as public jobs generally must be.
Both seemed ideal for an ex-minister in danger of imminent eviction from his home. To prove my bona fides, I told her about the specific opportunities.
For some reason she was more enthusiastic about the “full-time” aspect, not giving a damn about the salary. When she learned that the IAA gig was part-time, she told me to forget it.
The Department of Health job sounded a bit above my pay grade but maybe ministerial experience, an understanding of the mandarins and a bit of spoof would help me to clear the first hurdle.
So I was devastated when she confronted me with the Irish Times on January 5 with the headline: “Robert Watt to become new secretary general of Department of Health.” I naively pleaded that was impossible because public jobs must be advertised. The story was definitive. The Irish Times “understands” that Robert has landed the job “with immediate effect”.
It was an inspired leak. It helpfully described our hero as bringing “a formidable reputation as a reformer to the troubled Department of Health, having steered many tough public sector reforms…”
It even compared him favourably with his peers: “Unlike many senior civil servants, Mr Watt has experience in the private sector…” Robert, an able guy, was a shoo-in.
The job was finally advertised three days later — but the spin couldn’t have been any better if it had been written by the man himself. The leak will have scared off plenty of other applicants. Except me, because I have to explain myself to Ruth Buchanan.
Simultaneously, the newspapers revealed that the post was going to carry an outrageous salary of nearly €300,000 — and that both Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Health Minister Stephen Donnelly wanted Robert Watt in the position.
So perhaps the media jumped the gun. Perhaps Robert will, after all, be forced into an arduous process? According to the advertisement, applications are judged by the Top Level Appointments Committee (TLAC). It is, supposedly, no rubber stamp. We shall see.
TLAC is a 13-member body. Who sits on it? Well, no less than six secretaries general. And who perches in the middle of the SGs? None other than the reticent Robert. Of course, Robert
will have to absent himself from discussions if he applies, but all his secretarygeneral colleagues — like Government Secretary Martin Fraser and four others — will be sitting there, pivotal to his future.
There is no process for choosing the other seven, the external TLAC members. They are all our old friends, “political nominees” — appointed by guess which
politician? None other than the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Robert’s political master.
As the most influential adviser in the State, it would be amazing if Robert did not have a say in who comprises TLAC’s external seven.
Its chair — Conor Brady, former GSOC and Irish Times boss — carries credibility, but the system that put him there is flawed.
I have given up on any hope of the SG’s job. It is Robert’s for the asking. TLAC needs a few ordinary decent citizens, not political nominees and insiders picking insiders.
Instead, as a second best, I hoped to have a crack at the chair of the IAA.
I fancied my chances here. The IAA caused me untold grief when a minister last year. We had many tussles with the guys who wanted to sit on their cash hoard. They resisted paying the government a dividend. They were a monopoly, often looking like going rogue. I eagerly awaited the public advert for a new chair.
This time, there was not even a charade, no advertisement, no process. Instead, last Tuesday a shock announcement was made. Political patronage seems to be back. Minister Eamon Ryan donated the gig on a plate to a familiar name, Rose Hynes. Rose was parachuted into the chair. It is described as an ‘interim’ position. Strangely, there is no time limit.
Who recommended Rose to Eamon? Did they mark his card that Rose Hynes is a great favourite of the Blueshirts? Did he know? Her late father, Jack, was a Fine Gael stalwart in the north Clare village of New Quay. He took up the national church gate collection for the party in the area.
When I was transport minister, I determined that Rose’s time as chair of the Shannon Group should not be extended beyond her term, which was consistent with my policy elsewhere. Within minutes of telling her, I had received a call from taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the FG minister who had originally appointed her. Rose had been on the blower.
We compromised with just one more year. That year ended last August.
Now she has popped up elsewhere with another government gig.
Fine Gael loyalties apart, it is high time that the Celtic Tiger old guard were put out to grass.
At the height of the banking bubble, Rose was chair of the Bank of Ireland remuneration committee, approving the most shocking packages for executives.
She has a direct line to Leo and was appointed to the board of Aer Lingus by ex-Fine Gael party leader Alan Dukes.
Funnily enough, Eamon Ryan’s words reappointing her never mentioned her stint at the Bank of Ireland.
I will have to give up hope of chairing the IAA. Or of taking the secretary general of the Department of Health gig.
So will any other innocent applicants, not knowing that these jobs are earmarked for certain prefavoured individuals.
It will not break my heart. My problem will be explaining the weird ways of supposedly open competitions for State jobs to Ruth Buchanan.
I will just tell her that Ireland — the land where mandarins pick mandarins, judges pick judges and politicians nod and wink — is back to normal.
‘It is high time the Celtic Tiger old guard were put out to grass...’