Marian Finucane yesterday said the item on Kevin Cardiff on her RTE R1 show on Saturday provoked the single biggest response to any story covered by the programme since its return from the Summer break.
Much of it was incredulity at the following interview with MEP Proinsias De Rossa in defence of Mr Cardiff’s ongoing nomination to the European Court of Auditors.
Marian Finucane: “I’m joined in studio by Proinsias De Rossa And as you know the running story all week has been the Budgeting Control Committee of the European Parliament and its failure to approve Kevin Cardiff’s nomination. The votes were 12 against 11 for. And one person who has come out very strongly this week as a supporter of Kevin Cardiff is our MEP Prionsias de Rossa. And you’re very welcome indeed into the studio.
Prionsias De Rossa: “Thank you.”
Finucane: “I want to go through all of this with you but I also want to talk to you about MEPs in the context of the entire European disaster that we seem to be dealing with at the moment. But tell me a little bit about how you ended up in that role. No, actually, why don’t we listen to you in that role.”
[Audio played of De Rossa at the Budgeting Control Committee]
“Thank you very much and welcome to Mr Cardiff to the hearing here today. I have to say her by way of preamble that I’m very pleased that the Irish Government is offering someone of such stature in Ireland, of such integrity, and qualifications for the job of auditor. I have been arguing for a long time with my colleagues in Government that we must make a very serious contribution to Europe. And we must do so by having key people here of the highest quality and of the highest qualifications. I’m very pleased that on this occasion at least they have listened to me. And that they have put Mr Cardiff forward for this job. I’m impressed by the openness and the open way in which you’re answering the questions here today. And I think that, I would urge members not to pay attention to emails which are driven by a party political considerations rather than considerations of fact and qualifications. And treat the obligations that are on us as MEPs to ensure the person we appoint here, is, has integrity, independence and qualifications. I think that’s the criteria we have to apply here today.”
Finucane: “That was the role I was talking about. How did you end you in that role?’
DeRossa: “In terms of my position, in relation to Mr Cardiff?”
Finucane: “Yeah.”
De Rossa:“First of all I have refused to comment at all on the nomination of Mr Cardiff at all, up to the hearing because I felt we were going into a process where every nominee, and there were eight nominees from eight member states for eight vacancies, was entitled to a fair hearing, which was not prejudiced by any kind of preconceived notions and so on and so forth. And so I refused adamantly to make comments in advance. What I did was I studied the CV of Mr Cardiff. I read the answers provided to the committee, because every nominee has to provide answers, written answers to pre-set questions. All nominees are asked the same questions. Not all the answers are the same but all the questions are the same. I read the Honohan report about the banking crisis. I’ve followed…I’ve read some books on the crisis obviously, as others have. I followed the Public Accounts Committee – particularly in relation to the €3.6billion miscounting. And so on and so forth. So I informed myself about the man and about the issue.”
Finucane: “Did you know him?”
De Rossa: “No. I met him on one occasion in Brussels a few weeks ago. I made it my business to meet him. I heard he was in Brussels so I asked him. Because I wanted to meet the man..cause you know it’s important that you meet the man and see the person you’re going to be making a judgement on.”
Finucane: “Yeah.”
De Rossa: “And I wouldn’t be making a judgement on him at the committee because I’m not a member of the committee. But, as an MEP, finally in December, I will have to, sort of, press the button for or against.So I felt it important to meet him and make a judgement on the person as well. And I met him subsequently then, after the hearing, when he was finished making his presentation. We were switching over to a private session, I happened to be leaving the room at the same time and I shook hands with him and I congratulated him on a very excellent presentation.”
Finucane: “You’re very gung-ho. And very positive, as indeed is the Government. And I mean I feel deeply sorry for Mr Cardiff because nobody wants to have their business discussed in public except it is a public thing.”
DeRossa: “Of course it is, yes.”
Finucane: “And you know he said himself he felt like a candidate rather than a (nominee). But you know there are genuine concerns about track records in the Department of Finance.”
De Rossa: “Sure. Look it. It’s not a question of there being no right to ask a question. Of course there are and the process for appointing a court of auditor, a European Court of Auditor is specifically in the…”
Finucane: “Specifically auditor? Auditor?”
De Rossa: “Yes, it’s specifically in the treaties, is laid down how it must be done. It requires a public hearing of the European Parliament, who then make a recommendation to the Parliament as a whole and then they make a recommendation to the Council. And the final decision is with the Council. So it’s a public process and anybody putting themselves forward for the job have to bear that in mind, you know…”
Finucane: “Yeah.”
De Rossa: “But the issues that they’re entitled, that we’re entitled, as MEPs, to address are also set down in treaties. It’s questions of integrity, independence, ability, qualifications, those are the issues.”
Finucane: “Right.”
DeRossa: “Motivations about then who is nominating them, and why, don’t arise as far as MEPs…”
Finucane: “Why not?”
DeRossa: “Because it doesn’t come into the question of the…”
Finucane: “But supposing, let’s forget Kevin Cardiff altogether, let’s put him out of the room for the moment.”
DeRossa: “Sure.”
Finucane: “Supposing somebody was nominating their brother, or their sister or, you know, somebody who had done them a favour? I mean motivation does matter.”
DeRossa: “No, no. Not as far as the treaties are concerned. And as far as the Parliament and the Council is concerned. It’s laid down…”
Finucane: “But if you thought I was getting a nomination because I had done a favour for somebody would you not think this is not appropriate.”
DeRossa: “Well it doesn’t…But the prob..I’m..I personally would have a view on it. But, as an MEP, making a decision in the Parliament. The basis on which I make my decision has to be based on the criteria in the treaties. No other.”
Finucane: “OK. Well we’ll bring Mr Cardiff back in now. Because that had nothing to do with him, let it, it should be said. Now this is a very, very short piece and it’s what Shane Ross had to say about the defence of Mr Cardiff.”
[Audio of Shane Ross:]
“I think Proinsias is painting Mr Cardiff as some sort of..there’s a picture of perfection, which he doesn’t even paint himself.”
Finucane: “That’s a fair point, isn’t it?”
De Rossa: “No. I mean. Again, you see, I have to make the judgement based on the facts that I have produced myself, that I have located myself. I am not making a judgement on the man in terms of his life..I mean, you know? I don’t know the man. And in a sense I’m pushed into being gung-ho because others are, by innuendo and in other ways, doing the man down, unfairly in my view, based on the record.”
Finucane: “Well you see does the €3.6billion not bother you?”
De Rossa: “Of course it does. But again you see, you know, he has been before the Public Accounts Committee on that. He has explained that this was a communication from the NTMA to middle management in the Department of Finance about the changing in the way of the way they were accounting for the housing finance agency. The fact that those people responsible in middle management failed to bring that to the attention of those higher up is a failure of the system.”
Finucane: “But we come back to this every time in Ireland. Whether it’s in the world of medicine, health, you name it, we always get ‘system failure’.”
De Rossa: “But that’s the reality.”
Finucane: “But you look at that headline that I just read out there about ‘House of Horrors Social Workers Vilified’. And they’re saying they got hung out and the management vanished. Like maybe this comes under ‘Life’s Unfair’ but if it happens on your watch, you’re responsible.”
De Rossa: “Well you’re responsible to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I mean I have personal experience of people working for me, failing to provide me with information which resulted in me making statements, public statements, which were not quite as accurate as they should have been. On at least one occasion I had to publically apologise for that. But I didn’t go back to my office and sack the person. I talked to them, I made sure that they understood the importance of information and so on and so forth. You know organisations, at the end of the day, are made up of human beings. You know, you cannot take the view that everybody has to be absolutely perfect. And there’s no such thing as an absolutely perfect system. The problems that RTE are facing at the moment is an example. I see no calls for the sacking of the director general of RTE or indeed of the chairman of the authority.”
Finucane: “I have seen such calls.”
De Rossa: “Well I haven’t actually. And I doubt that they will.”
Finucane: “Well the head of news now…”
De Rossa: “But the man at the top, we’re talking about the man at the top…”
Finucane: “Yeah and do you think he should consider his position?”
De Rossa: “No I don’t think so. Because clearly there was a system in place which failed. Now why it failed, I don’t know. And I think there needs to be a very tough, external inquiry.”
Finucane: “Absolutely.”
De Rossa: “And we need to ensure it never happens again, insofar as you can ensure that. But every system fails at some point or another. Because people become complacent, lackadaisical. Somebody, as they say…they put the importance on getting the story out, to be the first with it, and so on and so on, it happens.”
Finucane: “Yeah, I suppose you have to bear in mind that this is the court of auditors. It’s about money and sums and checking that the money is being audited correctly. Like we’ve had dreadful problems here. And I’m not saying they’re all Mr Cardiff’s fault, of course they’re not. But the Department of Finance has had an appalling track record on getting stuff wrong. During the Celtic Tiger years, they got it wrong, virtually every time on the growth, which was good news for us. But they also got it wrong every time, as we went downhill, and yet they have a website that pats themselves on the back and tells themselves they’re absolutely brilliant all of the time. So we are talking about money and governance and control over money, and accounting for money. And all that. And people are uneasy that somebody who presided over the money, now I know he was only in the top job only since 2010. Why would you pick that person out, to put them in charge of money?”
De Rossa: “Well you see, as I said, it’s not for me to not make that judgement as to why…”
Finucane: “But you have…”
De Rossa: “No, no, no, sorry. No, no. I’m making a judgement as to the qualifications of the person. The integrity of the person and the ability…”
Finucane: “I don’t think anyone has every questioned his integrity.”
De Rossa: “No, no, no…exactly. So you know, at the end of the day, these are the, this is the criteria that I have to apply in making a decision, in fairness, to everybody concerned. And I will make that decision in relation to all of the eight nominees, none of which I know. The only one I know, which I’ve met, is Mr Cardiff.”
Finucane: “OK. Well let’s have a listen now to one of the MEPs putting a question to Kevin Cardiff at the Budgetary Control Committee hearing on Wednesday.
[Plays audio from East Midlands MEP Derek Clark, of the UK Independence Party]
“..Mr Cardiff, when you were secretary general of the Irish government department of finance, you were responsible for a serious oversight of €3.6billion. In fact it was €1.8billion owed between two government agencies and it wasn’t a debt at all. And yet somehow it got doubled up and the government were led to believe it was this much of a debt which, of course, was totally wrong. When you’re an Irish civil servant, and to take a second point, you gave advice to the government to approve a blanket bank deposit guarantee which bankrupted the State. It left millions in hardship. It left the Irish state forced to accept an EU bailout. Why should anybody think that you would make a good member of the Court of Auditors? Especially when you’ve realised that you yourself will be earning millions of euros over the next 6 years while your countrymen are having to take austerity, cuts and years of hardship in order to make up for the debts and misappropriated, er, misstated funds which you yourself are guilty of.”
Finucane: “Right that was one of your fellow MEPs there putting similar questions. It’s the fact that it’s auditors really.”
De Rossa: “Yes and I mean, I mean one of the criticisms that I’ve heard being made about Kevin Cardiff here, is that he answered his questions too honestly. I feel…”
Finucane: “That’s bizarre.”
De Rossa: “It’s bizarre. You know, I mean he was very frank. He answered the question and he put that issue to bed if you like. None of the other MEPs, if you like, none of the other people who were involved in the committee on a regular basis pressed him on that point because they accepted his explanation that it was a failure in the system of the Department of Finance.”
Finucane: OK. This is part of his defence, I do believe. This is Mr Cardiff defending the guarantee.
[Plays clip of Kevin Cardiff addressing MEPS]
“We were at a point where there was at least a danger that our citizens would go to their banks and their workplaces the next week and not be able to access their cash. So I think we at least need to reflect on the possibility that the decisions made created some time and some space for further work and also protected our citizens, and indeed citizens of other parts of Europe, from the contagion effects that would have happened from an immediate catastrophe. On the double counting issue, well that’s slightly different. On that, I am at the head of the administrative pyramid responsible. Not entirely. The National Statistics Office also is involved. But I have to, as the responsible official say that yes that was my organisation’s responsibility and therefore mine. I’d like to just to be very clear, just because there will be Irish people, no doubt, looking at this, we have not lost anybody’s cash. And I know that almost goes without saying in this forum. But I want people to know that. There is no money gone missing.”
Finucane: “That’s a relief to know in itself. And indeed I would think that on the night of that bank guarantee. Who’s to say how anybody would have behaved if they were told there was going to be no money in the ATMs. But you wonder who was wielding the power that night? And who was putting the pressure on?”
De Rossa: “Well this is something that I presume the history books will address at some point. But my view on that is, and I disagreed with the guarantee and my party disagreed with the guarantee, some of those who are now in Opposition, who are now attacking it, voted for it and so on. But that’s beside the point in this context. But, at the end of the day, it was the minister’s call, the Taoiseach’s call as to what advice to accept. And they were given a range of options by a range of people, including consultants to whom they paid large amounts of money. And they made a choice and the Dail approved it.”
Finucane: But Proinsias we have to…yeah…absolutely true. But we have all seen Sir Humphries and we have all watched ‘Yes, Minister’. And, like, we’re not naive enough to think that very, very senior civil servants don’t carry an awful lot of sway. Because they do.
.
De Rossa: “Of course they do because they have the institutional knowledge, if you like, they have the experience of the institution.”
Finucane: “Yeah. They’re the permanent Government.”
[more transcript to follow]
Listen here
Previously: Kevin’s Gate: The Back To Back Loans
Previously: They REALLY Want Him To Get That Job