Irish Examiner view: A suspicious gaze falls on wasteful public spending
An information signs at the Abbey Graveyard, Bantry. Cork County Council’s senior executive officer Nicola Radley has had to explain that a total of 23 new structures and information boards are being erected in Bantry and that 75% of the cost is being met by Fáilte Ireland. Picture: Andy Gibson
We have commented on the eyebrow-raising case of the €7m Arts Council IT system that never was, and how it has followed a litany of financial farragoes ranging from mismanagement at RTÉ to high-end bike sheds.
Now, providing another reminder that ultimately all politics is local, Cork County Council has had to react after reports were spreading that one new, tourist-attracting sign in Bantry was costing €670,000.
That’s the equivalent of two bike sheds at Dublin rates. And you don’t even get somewhere to stand out of the rain.
The truth is somewhat more nuanced and infinitely less blood-pressure-raising. Confusion seems to have been sown when it was suggested on social media that the sum was being spent on the “Gateway Structure” on Wolfe Tone Square in the town.
There is work being carried out at a cost of €95,000 plus Vat, and you would imagine you could get quite a nice sign for that.
But the county council’s senior executive officer Nicola Radley has had to explain that a total of 23 new structures and information boards are being erected in Bantry and that 75% of the cost is being met by Fáilte Ireland.
No doubt some churl will suggest that the overall expenditure still works out at an average €29,000 per installation, but the project involves heritage trail enhancements and the removal of 20 outdated interpretive panels across the town, from Abbey Cemetery to St Finbarr’s Church.
And, of course, they have to withstand the gusts and flurries of coastal weather. There’s a reason it’s called The Wild Atlantic Way.
It’s easy to blame the internet and the arrival of social media for the wide-reaching spread of misinformation, but we should recall that the old aphorism that “a lie is halfway around the world before truth has got its boots on” long preceded the invention of packet-switching technology.
What the socials and search queries do tell us is something about the mood of the moment and which tropes are currently in wide circulation. It is achingly easy to identify the currency given to stories that “they” are taking “our” money, and “wasting” it.
This is an increasingly populist view and one which fuels many of the political developments of recent years, having had its moment during the covid pandemic and never looked back.
Its most extreme form in any democracy can be found in the US within Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), an entity which has no legal status and is housed entirely within the executive office of president Donald Trump.
Since the inauguration on January 20, Mr Musk’s team has inserted itself into at least 19 US government agencies, according to a tally by the New York Times.
His cost-cutting initiative has choked off the support provided by the US Agency for International Development and ordered cuts equivalent to more than €1bn in that country’s education department.
Doge acolytes have gained access to the US Treasury’s payments system and disrupted funds and structures for healthcare, law enforcement, and consumer protection.
Now they have been given power over the hiring of career officials.
That this is being done in the name of highlighting “wasteful and fraudulent” expenditure by politicians and bureaucracy should be a signal warning for everyone responsible for taking funds from the public and allocating them. That concept is no longer universally, or passively, accepted.
Administrators must ready themselves for permanent challenges over spending.
Bridget Jones' new body of work
So how was Valentine’s Day for you? Given the easy availability of gloomy news, let us hope each and every reader found the opportunity for a spot of love and affection to lighten the heart.
If not, there’s always the chance to share someone else’s — which is one of the reasons Irish people with romance in their souls have been flocking to see the fourth Bridget Jones film, starring Renée Zellweger.
Bridget, now aged 51 and newly widowed after the death of Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy (trod on a land mine, apparently) is looking for some new company.
She has a long list of preconditions dating from the first time we met her as a singleton 24 years ago.
“I will not fall for any of the following,” she says. “Alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, people with girlfriends or wives, misogynists, megalomaniacs, chauvinists, emotional fuckwits or freeloaders, perverts.”
That certainly narrows the field.
Bridget predated dating apps such as Tinder, but time has moved on. And so have expectations with Leo Woodall occupying a space as “the younger man”, which might once have been filled by our own Paul Mescal.
Does the film have anything new to say about relationships between women and men? And does it have a happy ending?
We’re not telling, but the Irish Examiner gave it four stars. And we don’t like to start the weekend on a downer.
Dark days for asylum system
There is something inherently dispiriting in the announcement that the Government feels unable to publicly identify any of its employees who are responsible for housing asylum seekers.
The Department of Integration, which is part of Norma Foley’s ministerial portfolio, says there is a “tangible risk” after arson attacks, threats to staff and facilities, animal cruelty, and, a quite chilling statement, “widespread intimidation”.
One staff member’s personal information has been shared online.
Normally, public bodies are obliged to provide the names of staff members when publishing documents or releasing them in response to freedom of information requests.
But the department says it has become too dangerous in a “turbulent environment” for people working in international protection and integration.
It added that the threat of violence against employees from far-right extremists was very real, and the decision to withhold staff names was “not taken lightly”.
Additionally, it is planned to withhold the names of staff in other public bodies that came into contact with the International Protection Accommodation Services (Ipas).
A letter said: “There have been several instances of officials from various public bodies having their names, images, and job titles shared on social media due to their association with the work of Ipas.”
The department said further information could easily be used to track down civil servants, using as little as their name and employer. There was a “significant risk” for anyone working in the sector, and even people with limited involvement could be targeted online.
Restrictions of this kind are usually associated with the management of terrorist activity and their imposition could mean that gardaí may be unable to identify the source of the threats, or that the law is inadequate and ill-resourced to deal with them.
Of course, the service has a duty of care towards the people who work for it, as well as meeting the conventions that applicants for international protection must be afforded confidentiality. But another aspect of this changed policy may prove deeply problematic.
The department says it will no longer provide details of the names and locations of centres used for accommodation for international protection applicants.
While some of the sites are well known among the public, there are “many which are not”.
The release of any information could “reasonably be expected” to endanger safety, based on a spate of incidents.
This is where matters become additionally fraught, beyond the issues of personal safety. Tensions have flared where communities perceive that emergency accommodation is being placed without public consultation.
The announcement of the new policy coincides with the latest statistics on sums spent by the State in accommodating international protection applicants. The figure for 2024 was €1.005bn, an increase of 54% on 2023’s €651.75m. At the end of 2021, Ipas housed just more than 7,000 people. Today that has risen to almost 33,000, some 9,000 of whom are children with their families.
Many of these cases are people in desperate straits who the Irish public will be willing to help.
However, keeping citizens in the dark, rather than consulting with them, may not be the best way to achieve this.
