Tag: FOI

Political pensions: The costs

Political pensions and lump sums for former TDs, Ministers and Senators have cost nearly €2 million every single month over the past year and a half.

An estimated €32.7 million has been spent by the Oireachtas and Department of Finance since January 2011 on pensions for former politicians. The cost includes more than €9.5 million paid in lump sums to the record number of public representatives who retired after the last election. A further €1.5 million was paid out in termination lump sums with another €3.24 million given out in ‘termination payments’.

In total, once-off payments came to €14.35 million with a further €12.68 million paid on actual ongoing pension payments. A detailed breakdown of expenditure, which was first obtained by the Irish Mail on Sunday, shows that €371,234 has been paid out by the Oireachtas every single week since January 2011.

Around €5.2 million has been paid out during the same period in Ministerial pensions with a further €515,540 paid out in ‘severance’ payments. When the Department of Finance payments are taken into account, the weekly cost to the taxpayer has been €449,757 over the past seventeen months.

Many familiar names are in receipt of sizeable state pensions including Ivor Callely, Padraig Flynn and Ray Burke.

Expenditure by the Department of Finance on pensions is contained in the following parliamentary question.

This is the FOI request and a breakdown of the figures:



On reform

Back in March 2011, just as the new government came in, I blogged about the programme for government.

…I trust not the words of politicians, but their actions. I will be closely watching how things are done, and indeed if necessary lobbying for greater transparency or changes to proposed legislation where I think such changes are flawed, or do not go far enough.

That scepticism, it turns out, was well placed. Now I take into account that no new government, no matter how well intentioned, can achieve legislative reform within the 14 months since March 2011. But could they have done more? Definitely.

Let’s take one example, which clearly is the focus of this blog, The Freedom of Information Act. The Programme for Government promised:

We will legislate to restore the Freedom of Information Act to what it was before it was undermined by the outgoing Government, and we will extend its remit to other public bodies including the administrative side of the Garda Síochána, subject to security exceptions.

Including:

We will amend the Official Secrets Act, retaining a criminal sanction only for breaches which involve a serious threat to the vital interests of the state.

The first thing the government set about doing was establishing the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. This Department, headed by Brendan Howlin, would take over responsibility for the FOI Act from the Department of Finance. So let’s focus on the core promises of reform promised by Howlin:

  • We will legislate to restore the Freedom of Information Act to what it was before it was undermined by the outgoing Government
  • We will extend its remit to other public bodies including the administrative side of the Garda Síochána

    • While I understand that some 14 months later the Minister has a Heads of Bill drafted (that he doesn’t seem to have consulted civil society on at all) it seems a bit odd we have waited this long. Now Mr Howlin might retort that he wants to bring substantial reform via an FOI amendment, and that takes time, and he may have a point. But there is also this. Both of the precise reforms he has mentioned, and has mentioned persistently in PQs since March 2011, could be achieved without amendment at all.

    If Howlin wanted to remove the fees and reduce them to zero, all that is required is a signature. Back in 2003 when the fees were introduced it was done using a Statutory Instrument (SI 264/2003). All that is needed is:

    1) Copy and paste SI 264/2003
    2) Where a euro figure is mentioned change it to €0
    3) Sign it

    Job done.

    Next on the prescribed bodies. What about:

    1) Copy and paste any of the dozen or more SIs where the Minister has the power to add bodies as prescribed under the Act
    2) Add a list of bodies such as the NTMA, the Central Bank, etc.
    3) Sign it

    Job done.

    Total time taken, probably less than 10 minutes. Total time it’s taken thus far: 14 months. And of course once the 10 minutes are up, you could spend the next 15 months drafting a new Bill to radically improve FOI overall, or bring in other legislation that was promised, like amending or repealing the Official Secrets Act, or Whistleblowers and Lobbying legislation. (I do appreciate it is a little more complicated than this, but not much).

    DDDA to be shut down and a referendum newsdump

    If you ever wonder how cynically our own government – no matter what party – treats us, then you get a clue today. Traditionally we would see bad news being released on a Friday (a Friday night newsdump), so that the bad news would get killed in the weekend news cycle – but this time the tactic is different.

    The Comptroller and Auditor General was tasked with writing a special report into the scandal ridden Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA). That report was finished and signed off on February 24, 2012 – or three whole months ago. The report would appear to have been missing down the back of a couch somewhere and by some miraculous coincidence, today of all days, it appears.

    So forgive my cynicism when you see that

    1) On a day the country goes to the polls in a referendum and;
    2) The night before newspapers are set to be wholly dominated by coverage of that referendum

    …the report magically appears, and Environment Minister Phil Hogan, whose Department is responsible for the DDDA, (and who has been missing in action during the entirety of the referendum campaign) suddenly appears to comment and confirm that yes, the report is published, and yes the DDDA will be shut down.

    Wonderful media management guys.

    Here is the report:



    Dermot Desmond's letter to Gavin O'Reilly

    Back on March 8 journalist Chris Lowry wrote an article for the Irish Independent about Celtic Football Club. The article was an opinion piece about Rangers and Celtic, and how both need each other to survive. He concluded:

    But actually, without Rangers, the whole house of cards could collapse. Celtic would be the hardest hit. What would point of them if their fans had no pantomime villain to boo?

    What, come to think of it, would be the point of Scottish football?

    Discuss.

    The next day on March 9, IN&M minority shareholder Dermot Desmond (a long friend of this blog) sent a letter to then IN&M chief executive Gavin O’Reilly. In it he complained about the above mentioned article saying:

    I was very disappointed to read the above article in the opinion section of the Irish Independent website yesterday. The high standards of journalism, that the IN&M claim to uphold, were clearly ignored when this article was published. It is frankly a disgusting piece of journalism that does a disservice to the IN&M Group. This type of gutter press is not what I would have expected from a company in which I have invested a substantial sum of money.

    And concludes:

    Mr Lowry’s article is not based on fact. Therefore, any response from you to the effect that “this is ‘fair comment”‘ simply will not stand up. I am calling on you to retract this opinion piece without delay and to issue an apology to both clubs. In the absence of a suitable apology, I will be recommending that Celtic FC make a formal complaint based on incitement to hatred.

    Of course, as Mr Desmond admits, he is a significant shareholder in Celtic FC. After reading of Denis O’Brien’s spokesman James Morrissey’s letter to Karl Brophy, one has to wonder just how often current IN&M shareholders Dermot Desmond and Denis O’Brien (or people acting on their behalf) are sending letters like this to management, or indeed to individual journalists working at Independent Newspapers.

    Thanks to a reader, here is Dermot Desmond’s letter, on the paper of IIU, his investment company:



    Brian Cowen's bank guarantee calls and texts

    Thanks to journalist Vinnie O’Dowd for this one. This is the mobile phone bill breakdown for Brian Cowen for the dates around the bank guarantee in September 2008. The numbers were removed by the Department of the Taoiseach. But the times and durations are interesting. Another piece in the jigsaw.



    Denying the O'Brien/Hogan meeting

    From the Department of the Environment press office on April 4 after a query relating to an alleged meeting between Denis O’Brien and Phil Hogan a couple of weeks ago and any mention of Sitserv as it relates to any future water metering contracts/tenders.

    The Minister had no meeting with Denis O’Brien in recent weeks or recent years for that matter. As regards, water reforms – including the Prog for Govt commitment to install water meters, this is very much a matter for Govt and the Minister will be bringing forward proposals on same for consideration of Govt in the coming weeks.

    Any public contracts that might arise would of course be subject to the normal rules on procurement/tendering.

    Regards,

    XXXX XXXXXX

    Press Office,

    Room 1.52,

    Custom House,

    Dublin 1.
    Tel: 8882638

    But…on April 6:

    Meanwhile, Mr Hogan and Mr O’Brien had a brief encounter at Mount Juliet Hotel last month.

    The minister was having breakfast in the hotel when Mr O’Brien entered the restaurant.

    “He did briefly bump into Denis O’Brien. They bumped into each other and exchanged pleasantries. They spoke for a matter of moments,” a spokesperson said.

    Mr Hogan holds honorary membership of Mount Juliet Golf and Country Club in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, where Mr O’Brien has a holiday home.

    Mr Hogan’s officials insist he has not held any official meeting Mr O’Brien as a minister.

    Can brief be defined as an hour or two?

    ECB President Mario Draghi refuses to release Lenihan letter

    ECB President Mario Draghi has refused to release a letter sent to then Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan in November 2010, the contents of which Lenihan claimed led to Ireland being “bounced” into the EU/IMF bailout.

    In the letter Mr Draghi said:

    “…the letter to the Irish Finance Minister, is a strictly confidential communication from the ECB President to the Irish Minister of Finance expressing the ECB’s Governing Council’s concerns about the then extraordinarily severe and difficult situation of the Irish financial sector and their repercussions on the stability of the Irish financial sector…”

    He said the letter ‘invited’ “the Irish government to take swift and bold action in order to address those concerns.”

    “With this letter, the ECB aimed at protecting the integrity of its monetary policy and the stability of the Irish financial system in the interest of the euro area citizens,” he continued.

    And (emphasis mine):

    “The letter was sent in the context of significant financial market pressure and extreme uncertainty on the prospect of the Irish economy, with substantial spillovers for the financial stability in the euro area as a whole. The confidential communication was aimed at discussing measures conducive to protecting the effectiveness and integrity of the ECB’s monetary policy and fostering an environment that ultimately contributes to restoring confidence among investors in the overall solvency and sustainability of the Irish financial sector and markets, which, in turn, is of overriding importance for the smooth conduct of monetary policy.”

    Here is the letter:


    A proposal – Would you like your FOI request paid for?

    Dylan Haskins has been kind enough to donate €1,000 to TheStory.ie, after he was reimbursed election expenses from the 2011 general election. TheStory.ie is not a registered charity, but any funds received are declared to the revenue, and either tax is paid on it, or I will submit a PAYE “self assessment” to show that the income was spent (it is for people receiving income from sources where some or all of the tax cannot be collected under the PAYE system, for example: profits from rents, investment income, foreign income and foreign pensions, maintenance payments to separated persons, fees, profit arising on exercising various Share Options/Share Incentives). This just means that the full amount can be spent on requests.

    My proposal is this: What FOI would you like to get done? Is cost a barrier? How about you propose your FOI here, and TheStory.ie helps with your request and also pays for all costs (within reason)? If you’re a student, an NGO, or just an interested citizen – leave a comment or get in touch privately – gavinsblog at gmail dot com.

    The only condition is that the results of all FOI requests will be published online for everyone to see (but it can be after you do your story, should you do one).

    Department of Taoiseach expenditure data 2010

    Late last year I asked for the follow information from the Department of the Taoiseach:

    1) A ‘datadump’, (ie a copy/export of) the Oracle financial management system in use by the Department covering the time period for 2010. This datadump should contain data relating only to the following subheads:

    Travel and subsistence (A2)
    Training and development and incidental expenses (A3)
    Postal and Telecommunications services (A4)
    Office equipment and external IT services (A5)
    Office premises expenses (A6)
    Consultancy services and value for money and policy reviews (A7)
    National economic and social (B)
    Commemoration initiatives (C)
    Tribunal of Inquiry (Payments to Messrs CJ Haughey and M Lowry) (D)

    This should include the following column heads (ie fields)
    Payment date; Subhead item; Cost Centre; Vendor Name; Invoice number; Line description; Amount.

    Subhead A1 covers salary data, which did not form part of this request. While the data was released in a physical hard copy format (yes printed out and posted to me), the total sum of non-salary expenditure should amount to €6.465m. Because I have not converted the documents into spreadsheets, and because some lines are entirely blacked out, I have not been able to perform a SUM calculation on the spreadsheets.

    The data contains spending of all types, including telephones, post, lunches, travel, bus fares, road tolls, flights, hotels, taxis, ferries, catering, photography, books, newspapers, bank charges, couriers, tea/coffee, legal charges, uniform cleaning, footwear, mobile phones, photocopying, office equipment, stationery, cleaning, cleaning supplies, and more.