Expensive exercise was `a breach of trust'

"Consultants are just hit men, used by Government as a ploy to give the impression that something is being done." The words of Capt Peadar McElhinney, who has just retired from a State organisation which was the subject of repeated consultancy reviews.

Formerly second most senior officer in the Naval Service, with a distinguished career both in the Republic and abroad with the United Nations under his belt, Capt McElhinney would have had good reason to feel disenchanted. When Mr Murray met him with his Price Waterhouse team in 1996, "consultant" was almost akin to a four-letter word in military circles.

The Defence Forces had been subject to repeated Government "reviews" - or attempts to trim the fat - since 1991. A report already carried out by Price Waterhouse in 1994 had recommended cuts, primarily in the Army, with little consideration given to the impact on the non-military responsibilities of the Naval Service and Air Corps in relation to search and rescue, drug interdiction and fisheries protection.

By addressing this in the second report and confirming the multi-tasking roles of both, the consultant earned the grudging respect of the two defence wings. Capt McElhinney singled out Price Waterhouse for some praise during his speech at his final parade in Haulbowline last month. However, he also criticised the Government for failing to accept the recommendations in full and for "cherry-picking" to suit its needs.

"I have no problem with Price Waterhouse. It did a very good job," Capt McElhinney told The Irish Times, speaking after he had stood down. "What I would take issue with is uninformed civil servants, hiring consultants because they have no management skills of their own, and then not accepting what they say.

"We had been carrying out our own internal reviews for the past decade, and Price Waterhouse really just validated our own findings. "But, even as drug interdiction and fisheries protection work increases in Europe's second-largest sea area, no political decisions have been taken. There has just been a fudge."

His frustration is echoed by counterparts in the Air Corps. Lieut Col Ken Byrne, who retired last July, has already said that excessive bureaucracy and lack of a clear direction from the Government on the future of the defence wing has been having a very detrimental effect on morale, at a time when there are already many opportunities for Air Corps staff elsewhere in the aviation industry.

Although the Comptroller and Auditor General's office did carry out a review of consultancy expenditure from 1994 to 1996, Capt McElhinney believes that the practice should be examined by the Dail Committee of Public Accounts. "How many consultancy reports have been commissioned, paid for and then conveniently shelved?" he asks.

"The taxpayer should know how much money has been and is being spent on advice that is then ignored," he says. "The Naval Service entered the latest review process in good faith, believing that the Government would make a decision."

Although the implementation plan on foot of that review is about to be presented to Government, Capt McElhinney is not as optimistic as Mr Murray about the final outcome.

Consultants, he says, were paid to participate in an expensive exercise that represented a breach of trust.

Small wonder that - with better career prospects elsewhere - personnel are leaving the Naval Service at the rate of 10 a month.