“Waste not, want not” was a diktat of many an Irish childhood. It came from the same rule book as “Eat your dinner – there are babies starving in Africa” and the obligation to wear older siblings’ hand-me-downs and “be grateful”. In lean times, frugality is a virtue. But when wealth comes in the door, thrift flies out the window.
Ireland’s dash up the ladder of the world’s richest countries has coincided with its plunge down the greasy pole of public spending prudence. As former finance minister Charlie McCreevy saw it: “When you have it, you spend it.” Right now, Ireland has it but it doesn’t always spend it. Sometimes, it just pours it down the drain. The bill for spending incontinence, as far as we know and, probably, still counting, includes:
€1.43 million for a security hut at Government Buildings;
€336,000 for a bike shelter at Leinster House;
Elon Musk’s brutal rampage through the US government should be a warning to our politicians
ADHD gender gap: ‘Girls are constantly falling under the radar’
Eating disorders: ‘I wouldn’t speak to my worst enemy the way I talked to myself’
I’m not ready to let Bridget Jones go just yet. She has been a constant comfort to me and so many women I know
€490,000 for a wall outside the Workplace Relations Commission;
€6.7 million for an IT system for that was never used;
€125,000 on an art scanner that, likewise, has not been used;
€361,000 for refurbishing a fireman’s rest in Cork;
Running total: €9.442 million.
That sum may seem a pittance when billions upon billions of euro are sloshing around the State’s coffers but, politically, it’s dynamite. Albert Reynolds never said a truer word than when he pronounced that it’s the little things that “trip you up”. These are the kinds of little things that provided Donald Trump with his re-election platform. They are clear-cut examples of inefficiency – if not reckless spending – that can readily be converted by some conspiracy theorist into a diatribe about alleged corruption within the deep state.
Compared with mammoth and complex enterprises such as the national children’s hospital, which is projected to cost €2.2 billion, profligacy on smaller projects presents a starker reality, because most of us have homes or huts or bikes or walls, and we know their price. You don’t have to google the cost of building a house to know you could build a decent one for what the OPW spent on the wall in Dublin 4 or that the price of the “very attractive” hut in Merrion Street could get you three houses. It’s the flip-flop factor. At the height of the RTÉ scandal about fat salaries, the €2.2 million losses on Toy Show The Musical and a €111,000 Rugby World Cup trip for corporate clients, it was the €5,000 blown on flip-flops for a summer party that best exemplified frivolous expenditure by the State-owned broadcaster.
The extravagances of a “beautiful” security hut and a designer bike rack are not little things to anyone who is desperately waiting for a hospital appointment or a childcare place, a mental health consultation or safe accommodation for a young person at risk. They are guaranteed to infuriate those who cannot afford the average Dublin house price of €600,000 or €2,000-plus in rent every month for an apartment not much bigger than the Government’s hut. A State that wastes the guts of €7 million on an unusable computer system is rubbing salt in the wounds of citizens who have delayed starting families because of the housing crisis and the parents who watch their adult children surrender all hope and leave the country.
Affluence gives people notions. Who can forget the three-minute limousine ride costing €472 that John O’Donoghue took from one terminal to another at Heathrow airport when he was the ceann comhairle and his bloated expenses earned him the sobriquet Johnny Cash? The Celtic Tiger was riddled with notions. The ashes of its aftermath brought us the infamous €1.8m Oireachtas printer that was too tall to fit in a room. Other people’s money has a way of slipping through unaccountable fingers.
It is not only those wallowing in wealth who get notions. Those watching but not benefiting get notions too – notions that their money is being squandered by a reckless State. This is how trust in politics and public administration gets eroded. There is an urgency now to staunch the excessive public expenditure. Ireland’s infrastructure and services are creaking under the weight of population growth and the legacy of underinvestment. We need more houses, hospitals, schools, roads, public transport systems, water services and climate-related adjustments such as flood defences and subterranean power lines. With €165 billion allocated to the National Development Plan, mounting examples of foolish expenditure by the State do not inspire confidence that it can be accomplished within budget.
Elon Musk’s brutal cost-cutting rampage through the American federal government should be a warning to Irish politicians. It is an easy segue from heedless spending into slash-and-be-damned cost-cutting. Not that nice Michael O’Leary would ever declare war on Merrion Street wielding a chainsaw, but suggestions during the economic crash that the Ryanair chief executive should take over the running of the country suggest there is some public appetite for a no-frills counter-approach by an unsentimental business tycoon.
Much of the public distrust in the State’s administration arises from an absence of accountability. It happens again and again that details of a foolishly extravagant project are revealed, the Government expresses its dismay, an investigation is promised, but nobody is ever held to account. External fee-charging consultants are called in to produce a report reiterating what was already known, followed by their exorbitant bill. Is there no employee in the entire civil and public service qualified to undertake such an inquiry?
The Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) provides a valuable service by examining State spending, but the office’s remit follows the project. By then it’s too late. The money is already spent. One way of enforcing a level of accountability would be a requirement that the C&AG conduct an assessment before any projects above a specified cost are approved. This would necessitate bulking up the office’s resources, but some of that investment could be recouped. By scrutinising the caveat emptor specifications of planned purchases, it could prevent wasteful spending on a printer that is too tall to fit in a room or an art scanner that cannot be accommodated or a bike shelter costing €18,600 per bicycle space.
