Social partnership Irish style.

Social Partnership the Irish version.

It’s been quite an eye opener to see the amount of money being paid to trade union members of state boards, http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/shane-ross/shane-ross-union-boss-takes-euro100k-fees-from-housing-quango-2151667.html. Membership of these boards (such as Fas, etc) are mirror images of the partnership processes, i.e. they include places for the social partners (ICTU and IBEC) the relevant state agencies, and where relevant the community sector.

In my former role as a community director of a Partnership company I had to meet all expenses that I incurred as a result of representing my community. I was never given any fees to participate, and as my nominating community group was completely unfunded I had to pay the costs of participation and it was substantial. http://www.shane-ross.ie/archives/584/mistress-of-inaction-on-fas/ Extract from this webpage “Headed by trade union leader Peter McLoone, they decided to tough it out. Peter was one of the many lucky luxury travellers to sample the joys of Florida. He also draws €25,000 a year as chairman of the board.

A second trade union representative, Owen Wills of the crafts union, was another to hitch hike on a €7,000 return ticket to Florida.

He is still drawing €14,000 from Fas as a nice little part-time gig.

Des Geraghty, the former Labour MEP and Siptu boss, remains perched at the top of this rotten agency.

None of these boys are budging. Nor is Danny McCoy, the big employers (Ibec) boss, drawing €14,000 a year from his sideline. Danny and Ibec are fond of lecturing us about the need for good corporate governance, national discipline and sacrifice. These noble principles obviously do not apply to any board adorned by Danny.

Danny is joined on the board by three other Ibec staff enjoying the spoils of Fas office.

None of them could have held on without political support. Both social partners — unions and employers — have their snouts in the Fas trough. “

In thinking about the fees being paid to trade union members of these boards I find it galling that they were being paid, while the community sector was not even receiving their genuine expenses.

I did make representations to both the Department of Community Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (i.e. the relevant department) and also to the nominated state agency (Pobal), however I was not successful in having anything changed. As far as I know nothing has changed in the meantime and I can guarantee one thing that has not changed and that is, community directors are still not receiving fees like the directors of Fas and the other state agencies.

Since its inception Social Partnership always treated the community sector as the poor relation, but when these fees are revealed it is quite clear we are very definitely the poor relations, and we should be grateful that we are allowed to sit at the table with these very important people. They must be very important to justify the level of fees they receive.

One of the really annoying things about this issue is the community sector always seen itself as closest to the trade union sector, however it appears the trade union sector, and in particular those at the top were receiving payments while the community sector was not even getting proper expenses, but the trade union sector never told us they were getting money from the state.

I suspect most of the ordinary trade union members that were participating in various boards were not getting any payments either. This money was only available to the players at the top of the pile, I’ll bet.

Dochas Female prison governor resigns.

Brian Purcell director of the Irish prison services was on RTEs Pat Kenny show trying to defend his organisations decisions in the female prison in Dublin. The governor of the prison has resigned citing various (unacceptable to her) decisions that she says are detrimental to the health and safety of the prisoners.

In defence of his position Mr Purcell stated a number of times, that he was not in control of the number of prisoners in the prison implying that it is judges that are responsible for sending prisoners to jail.

However it is his organisation that decides who gets early release, and therefore he is very much in control of how many prisoners are actually in the prison at any given time, and thus he has every control over the prisoners and their lives.

His arguments clearly show he has a very different philosophy on how prisoners should be dealt with, than the philosophy employed by the governor, an experienced professional of 32 years working in the prison services.

IMHO it is a case of a quango head with legal powers over a state agency, exercising those powers in a manner that says to the governor, if you do not agree with my decision then tough, you will legally abide by it, or go, and unfortunately, she decided to go.

Another interesting point in the debate was how Pat Kenny referred to her retiring as opposed to resigning. You can dress it up in whatever politically correct language you want to, but it is an unhappy resignation to me, not a happy retirement.