Tag Archives: Kevin Cardiff

From The public accounts committee meeting on the “Debt Discrepancy In The National Accounts”, November 3, 2011.

Shane Ross: “I will ask just a final question before I depart. Mr. Cardiff is due to head for the European Court of Auditors shortly.”

Kevin Cardiff: “Yes.”

Ross: “Will Mr. Cardiff assure the committee that he will see this matter sorted before he departs? As he stated, it is his responsibility.”

Cardiff: “Yes. Accounting Officers must take responsibility for issues such as this and see them through. It was to allow this to happen that I stated that I would hope to have the external report on this by the end of the year.”

Ross: “Mr. Cardiff will not depart until this matter has been resolved satisfactorily.”

Cardiff: “My departure is not entirely in my own hands, but I will press hard—–”

Ross: “Mr. Cardiff cannot depart without his own consent.”

Cardiff: I am not sure about how true that is.”

Ross: “Does Mr. Cardiff have something to tell us?”

Cardiff: “No. In a technical legal sense, I am not sure that the Deputy is 100% correct. I will try hard to get this done before I go. Sometimes, a fresh pair of eyes can see things that the existing person cannot.”

Ross: “Mr. Cardiff has responsibility. He is one of the two principal players. It would be wrong if he left the Department of Finance in a shambles, where its systems were not satisfactory and where something such as this could recur. It happened on his watch and he should not go to Europe until this committee, the Department and the Minister are satisfied that this problem has been resolved. Will Mr. Cardiff give us that guarantee?”

Cardiff: “No, I will not.”

Ross: “Mr. Cardiff will just float off and leave the problem here…”

(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)

MINISTER FOR Finance Michael Noonan was told by his department’s officials last year that a €3.6 billion accounting error had only “recently” come to light despite a paper trail stretching back more than 12 months.

In a briefing note for the Minister, prepared on October 28th last, he was told the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) “have recently drawn to our attention” a double-count of money borrowed by the Housing Finance Agency.

However, internal documents show there were at least 20 emails between the National Treasury Management Agency and the Department of Finance’s general government section relating to the matter between August 23rd, 2010, and October 25th, 2011.

The issue centred on the fact that exchequer money being loaned by the NTMA to the Housing Finance Agency was being counted twice as debt and overstated the national debt.

The issue became public knowledge on November 1st last year, after the department issued a statement following inquiries by TV3 News.

You’ll recall how, at the time, former Department of Finance Secretary General Kevin Cardiff ‘was puzzled too.’

This month Kev takes up his €276,000 per year gig at the European Court Of Auditors.

Nice work fella.

Officials knew of ‘recent’ €3.6bn error for a year (Irish Times)


Pat Neary. Financial regulator: €630,00 pay-off plus public service pension of almost €143,000 a year, €2,750 per week, for the rest of his life.

Kevin Cardiff, former General Secretary of The Department of Finance. Now a member of The European Court of Auditors on  a gross salary of around €180,000 a year but a net salary of €140,000 due to the low tax rate on EU salaries. The post, which is normally for a period of six years, “also involves generous pension arrangements which amount to half salary for the three years immediately after serving in office and a pension of 26 per cent of salary after that”.

Earlier: My Work Here Is Done

(Photocall Ireland)

December 2004: After failing to succeed Sean Fitzpatrick as Chief Executive of Anglo , Tiernan O’Mahony (above left) leaves the bank and sets up International Trading Securities Trading Corporation (ISTC). According to ‘Anglo Republic’ Fitzpatrick “opened his contacts book” and helped O’Mahony tap investment from Anglo’s main customers including Denis O’Brien, Sean Quinn, Johnny Ronan, Paddy Kelly and Seamus Ross.

February 2008: Investors in ISTC are forced to write off losses of €820 million, at the time the biggest cash loss for an irish company. The firm has just €57.8 million to cover liabilities of €878 million.

September 25, 2008 (8.30pm, but not listed in Kevin Cardiff’s appontment book above): Tiernan O’Mahony meets Kevin Cardiff at the Department of Finance to offer suggestions on whether the government should guarantee the banks. According to the Sunday Independent: “Mr O’Mahony told Mr Cardiff, according to well-placed sources, that the State needed to consider some form of a guarantee to restore confidence to the market and halt the flow of billions in deposits out of Irish banks.”

November 12, 2008: ISTC suspends trading in its shares, postpones publication of its financial results and scraps plans to raise €150 million in a last-minute rescue attempt by financier Dermot Desmond (source: ‘Anglo Republic’).

Kevin Cardiff’s appointment Diary (The Story)

 Ex-Anglo Man Briefed Cardiff On Banks Crisis (Tom Lyons, Sunday Independent)

The post of chief of the Finance Department left vacant by Kevin Cardiff’s appointment to the European Court of Auditors prompted the following editorial this morning.

You may want to sit down.

The finance department once attracted the best brains in the civil service, often the best brains in the country. To some extent it still does.
But in recent decades and especially during the Celtic Tiger era, its deficiencies multiplied. When the crash came, it was exposed to the same glaring light that fell on other institutions.
Now it needs a chief who will shake it up from top to bottom…there is a strong argument in favour of choosing an outsider…But how much should the outsider be paid?
…The cap on Public spending remuneration is €200,000 a year. Most likely a suitable candidate and his/her partner earn more than double that. Very Likely too, they have a house to sell, another house to buy, substantial possessions to be transported, children to be placed in fee-paying schools. Here is a strain on patriotism if ever there was one.
In principle, and as a statement of intent, the cap is justified and reasonable.
But there is an exception to every rule and there should be an exception to this one.
We should not allow a return to old-style thinking which places the preservation of an insider network above the real public interest.

Irish Independent editorial (not available online)

Well, we’re convinced.

(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)

MEMBERS OF the European Parliament budgetary control committee have been invited to submit “additional questions” to Kevin Cardiff, the Government’s nominee as Irish member of the European Court of Auditors.

An email, which has been seen by The Irish Times, was sent to leading members of the committee yesterday morning, asking them “to submit the list of additional questions that you intend to make to Mr Cardiff, candidate nominated by the Irish authorities, by next Friday”, December 2nd.

1. What, you again?

2. What’s with the weird grin there, Poindexter?

3. Did we not tell you to piss off last week?

And so forth…

MEPs invited to put more queries to Cardiff (Irish Times)