Sir, - It looks as if the Bord na Mona affair, enveloped in its cloud of obfuscation, has disappeared over the political horizon. Before it is completely forgotten about, it would seem only right that your readers, or at any rate the ones who take an interest in such things, be made aware that the business of the company was ordered differently in earlier times. Here is a snippet of its history as an example.
In the late 1960s or early 1970s, some bog transport employees at a large Bord na Mona works were found to have claimed, and received, payment for overtime on night shift that they had not in fact worked. They were dismissed. The incident had unpleasant repercussions for other employees also who, after an investigation of it, were held to have been remiss in not ensuring that a control system to guard against such an occurrence operated effectively.
Board members at that time were conscious of being in the position of trustees for the taxpayers who were the beneficial owners of the company, having funded it in the first place. The board took the view that it was absolutely unacceptable that an employee should take from the company by way of payment what he or she was not entitled to under his or her contract of employment.
The dismissed men's trade union fought strongly for its members and brought its case to the Labour Court. The Labour Court upheld the action taken by the board. Some of the men involved were later re employed on the strength of extenuating factors pleaded on their behalf, others remained dismissed.
An engineer brought his motor car one day to the maintenance workshop of the works where he was employed, in order to carry out a mechanical repair. He incurred a disciplinary penalty (I cannot now recall the precise nature of it) because such a conspicuous use of the company's facilities and materials for a private purpose would erode the integrity needed, as the board saw it or the proper running of a public enterprise.
No doubt there are some people, perhaps many people, who would now consider the board's attitude in those days oppressive and inflexible, and feel that the company would be well rid of such a regime. Others with a less narrow focus will have learnt from more recent events that casual, indifferent and irresolute attitudes towards their responsibilities by persons in public office can have very damaging consequences, and when the damage has to be paid for it is the taxpayer who is saddled with the bill. - Yours, etc.,
Silchester Park, Glenageary,
Co Dublin.