Madam, – Sarah Carey’s criticism of Mary Harney’s role in relation to Fás (Opinion, September 30th) was riddled with such untruths, false assumptions and a disregard for recorded facts as to reduce it to a piece of sloppy invective.
The heart of Ms Carey’s criticism is that Ms Harney, as minister for enterprise, trade and employment, allowed the budget of Fás to double when Ireland was achieving full employment.
To start with, even in a full employment economy, it is appropriate to build higher levels of skills for people by investing in training. And most of the Fás budget went to pay wages for people on training, apprenticeship and employment schemes.
That said, in direct contradiction of Ms Carey’s position, the record shows that, as early as 1999, Ms Harney sought to reduce certain State employment supports, precisely because Ireland was achieving full employment. She did reduce employment scheme places funded through Fás from 40,000 to 25,000 – against enormous opposition from politicians and commentators at the time.
This is clear from even the briefest checking o f The Irish Timesarchive and is easily recalled by those who follow politics closely.
Ms Carey then accuses Minister Harney of “negligence” in the context of asking the director general of Fás to carry out an internal audit of serious, but unsubstantiated, allegations sent to her in an anonymous letter. This was the correct line of accountability and was the diligent, not negligent, action for Ms Harney to take.
The Irish Times reported on November 14th, 2008, that this internal audit “found no evidence to support the allegations in the letter, but did come across other matters about which it expressed concern”.
This audit was the source of much of what has followed. Notwithstanding this, Ms Carey says the Minister should have asked the Comptroller Auditor General to carry out an audit from the start. In which case, the CAG would be tied up investigating every anonymous allegation every Minister receives, as no Minister could trust any agency or organisation’s internal audit function.
Besides, as we know, the CAG’s audits of the time of Fás gave clearance to the accounts of Fás and did not uncover any misdeeds.
Another matter that is easily checked from The Irish Times archive is the following. Nothing “emerged” after Minister Harney’s clear statement on November 28th, 2008 that she did not use taxpayers’ money for personal grooming. The information about the expenses incurred by Fás in Florida was set out before November 28th. Minister Harney’s statement was not “Jesuitical” but drew a legitimate distinction between preparation by a Tánaiste for official representational functions and personal grooming. Ms Carey might not agree with this distinction, but she should at least get her facts right about timing, if she seeks to make such an issue about the timing between Ms Harney’s statements and information becoming public.
Further undermining Ms Carey’s article are the following facts: the board of Fás, not Ms Harney, appointed Mr Molloy as director general, following an open competition. He was a career public servant and could not therefore have been “an occasional employee” of Fianna Fáil, as she alleged.
This opinion column was laced with other innuendo and cheap shots which simply don’t bear repeating.
In short, never mind the facts, here’s the strident opinion. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Sarah Carey has made a significant point in highlighting the role Mary Harney played in wasting taxpayers’ money and travelling on Fás gravy planes (Opinion, September 30th).
But that is “only” about waste and a culture of entitlement.
Much more importantly, she is putting the lives of children at risk by currently using the State’s financial difficulties as a justification for imposing budget cuts on the Dublin children’s hospitals. It is obvious that these cuts are part of a campaign to encourage the hospitals to co-operate with the locating of the new national children’s hospital at the Mater.
In Eithne Donnellan’s article (Home News, September 30th), referring to the escalation of waiting times for cardiac surgery at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, the HSE spokesperson claimed work was under way to deal with the situation “in the interim pending the opening of the new national paediatric hospital”.
In this case “interim” means at the very least five years. The potential for collateral damage to sick children and their families, in pursuit of a dubious policy, is dangerously high and the fall-out may far outweigh anything else the tough-minded Ms Harney has been involved in. – Yours, etc,