On Wednesday last, I spent a few hours watching the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on the Internet. They are trying to get to the bottom of the financial shenanigans at the Garda College in Templemore. The official title is, ‘Matters arising from Interim Report of AGS Internal Audit Unit on Financial Procedures at the Garda College Templemore.’
This probably wouldn’t be most peoples’ idea of fun but I find that kind of stuff entertaining. The whole business concerning the state of financial accounting in Templemore is a heavy subject with lots of details about dates of meetings and who was present and who said what to whom being bandied about. But it’s all good stuff.
From the garda side of the house, there were three main civilian witnesses. There was the head of Human Resources, the guy in charge of doing the audit and the guy in charge of Finance. There were others but these three were the stars of the show. It soon became obvious that there was some hostility between these people and there was a bit of finger pointing going on.
There were moments when the contents of letters and reports were read out in public. Sometimes they contained comments made by one witness about the other which was a little awkward considering that they were sitting side by side. They appeared to be uncomfortable at times and looked like they wished that they were somewhere else instead.
As I was watching it, a couple of things came to mind. Some of the committee members appeared to be behaving very aggressively towards the witnesses, occasionally, they were bordering on being rude. This committee is questioning witnesses and looking at the evidence presented to them with the intention of finding out what happened and presumably furnishing a report based on their findings.
I didn’t see the need for the amateur dramatics and grandstanding. It should be possible to carry out this function without screaming about how outraged they are and about how this is probably the worst thing they have experienced since they entered politics. A bit of civility wouldn’t go amiss and people need to calm down. As serious as it is, it’s not the Nuremberg Trials.
The Chairman of the Audit Committee, who is no longer in that position, got a hard time from Mary Lou McDonald for not being better prepared to answer questions. The guy was only asked the previous Friday to attend the meeting and he didn’t have access to records because he doesn’t hold the position anymore. He did turn up to the PAC staff the day before to have a look at the paperwork that was available to him so he could refresh his memory. He did his best.
The other irritation was the amount of time allocated to the committee members to ask their questions. They got a few miniutes each but it wasn’t enough time so they all ended up running over and rushing at the end. Sometimes without getting the answer to the last question.
Some of the politicians spent most of their allotted time making long winded statements and that didn’t help.
While the subject matter is serious, just watching the carry on can be entertaining. Sean Fleming of Fianna Fail is the chairman of the committee and he has a habit of banging a spoon or a pen off a glass when he gets a little excited or when he wants attention. Nobody apart from Sean seems to take any notice of it.
He was challenged at one point by David Cullinane of Sinn Fein on why he wouldn’t let one of the witnesses make a comment in relation to another witness and he got very animated. He looked as if he was afraid that the stewardship of this committee might be taken from him. He pointed out that he was the chairman and he was doing it his way. He was a bit excited.
Sean then got a bit stressed about the contents of a letter that compared the goings on in Templemore to the events that unfolded at Console, the charitable organisation. Sean went to great lengths to explain why this letter was bothering him so much and why it was so important.
Alan Kelly of Labour got stuck in and you can always count on him to put on a good show. He didn’t pull his punches and always seemed ready to bite someone’s head off. Catherine Connolly, Independent, on the other hand, gave the appearance of not being too sure about what was going on. She came across as being somewhat lost while Bobby Aylward, Fianna Fail, seemed very sure of himself but I had no idea what he was on about. He seemed to be asking general questions to nobody in particular.
This process has a long way to go yet. So far, it appears that whatever went on in Templemore wasn’t for the personal gain of any one individual. It seems more likely that all this bad governance and poor accounting was a result of lack of ability more than criminality. The sums of money involved were enormous and there was no expertise there to deal with it properly. Every time someone got an idea, they opened a bank account. There were 48 of them.
Many people will struggle to understand how things could get to this state. How there could be such bad governance and mismanagement in An Garda Siochana and why so many issues were left unchallenged.
I am one of those and I will be tuning in to the next meeting to find out.