Real printer culprits know all about wasting public money
THE casual, everyday abuse of public money is a deeply embedded, top-to-bottom scourge that has afflicted the people of this country for decades. The €1.8m spent on a printing machine for the boys and girls in that perfectly formed, hermetically sealed dafthouse on Kildare Street is the latest example of the utter contempt for hard-earned cash belonging to us all.
The media love this kind of story. The amount of money involved is considered small enough for regular people to get their heads around, big enough for excess and waste to be manifest and stupid enough for public outrage to be milked.
So, journalists run here and there with the excitement of a child eating his first banana and then the news cycle churns over – and it’s gone. Forgotten. Until the next lowlevel, fool of a civil servant repeats the debacle somewhere else.
Meanwhile, the top-down culture that gives rise to these outrages – symptoms of a much more sinister and virulent pathology – is effectively ignored, to the great relief of people like the ever-pleasant Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
That’s where the real blame resides.
THOSE two, over the past couple of years, have put the entire financial future of the State at risk to the tune of billions and in such a manner that is causing the chair of the Fiscal Advisory Council, Séamus Coffey, the sort of anxiety for which there is no compensation.
Mr Coffey has been wagging his finger at Donohoe and Varadkar for some time now – the latest warning came this week – for spending money on long-term commitments on the back of earnings that are short-term and conditional on global business maintaining its current trends and movements in foreign direct investment.
The Fiscal Council now insists that Donohoe is spending money at a rate that is not in line ‘with prudent economic and budgetary management’.
Given the sort of diplomatic language used in such criticisms of government, it’s fair to regard that statement as a well-targeted root up the backside.
Coffey, in his previous attacks on government spending, pointed to the €10bn swing in corporation taxes in favour of Ireland in recent years.
Trouble is that money is gone on health spending, hiring more people and other day-to-day costs, while our national debt remains at over €200bn, equal to €42,000 for every man, woman and child living here – or €90,000 for every tax slave in the workforce. And, over the past 10 years the national debt has cost €60bn in interest.
Then we have Taoiseach Varadkar saying that even if corporation tax declines, the shortfall could be made up by increased taxes from building. Well, judging from the snail’s pace his Minister for Homelessness Eoghan Murphy is building houses, the Taoiseach has another thing coming.
EVEN considering that taxes from building could plug spending holes in the Government’s accounts betrays Varadkar’s goldfish memory of the disaster that shredded Ireland’s sovereignty nine years ago. Has nobody told him about how that catastrophe ruined lives, killed thousands of people on medical care waiting lists, destroyed families, threw people into homelessness and despair and set back the country with a lost decade and massive debt?
Culture comes from leadership. We all need to know the values that inspire those at the top of the pile.
Those responsible for that €1.8m printing machine mess were merely taking their cue from the higher-ups.
The real culprits are not in Leinster House at all. They’re in that posh pile at the back – Government Buildings.
AND now, you’re going to see four words arranged in a way you are unlikely ever to have expected. They are: Shane Ross is right!
He wants a graduated punishment system for speeding drivers instead of the current standard, across-the-board €80 fine plus three penalty points, irrespective of what speed is involved. If his proposals make it into law, egregious and repeated breaches of the speed limits may result in drivers being sent to jail. And rightly so. Because, we all KNOW speeding is a killer.
Fianna Fáil’s Marc MacSharry, pictured, should get with the programme. Attack for the sake of it is only self-maiming.