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There is a not entirely unfounded perception out there that the political, bureaucratic, private and public service systems in Ireland, to varying degrees, are essentially accountability-free zones.
The refrain, ‘when is the last time you saw a banker in court, eh?’ is the one we normally associate with this kind of thing.
‘Civil servants? Protected species more like it,’ is another.
This kind of rhetoric reached its zenith in the post-financial crash era when a righteous anger from the electorate demanded, in a metaphorical sense, the blood of every rotten banker and financial services operator who assisted through reckless hubris and corporate greed in the impoverishment and international humiliation of the nation.
Some of us still remember the tribal fury that erupted in 2010 when former Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore bellowed across the Dáil chamber that then Taoiseach Brian Cowen was guilty of “economic treason” with respect to the role he played in including Anglo Irish Bank in the bank guarantee scheme in 2008.
Well, as we all know now the fury eventually subsided.
Fianna Fail, virtually excommunicated by the electorate in 2011, were welcomed back from political purgatory with open arms in 2016 with voters more than doubling their seats to 44.
Clearly a large proportion of the public were of the view that in terms of accountability the party had served its time, and after all it was a bit ungracious really to go on kicking the lads when they were down.
Anyway, let’s get back to the bankers and financiers.
One of the things that really annoyed people in the pre and post-crash era was the fact that here they were, so called ‘pillar’ institutions, with executives that would jump in front of any camera Montrose might send out when the going was good but who morphed into anonymous and impenetrable layers of executive management when the merde hit the fan and accountability came knocking.
It would take another decade before Ireland got its act together in terms of putting in place a framework that would attempt to hold these people individually accountable.
This took the form of The Central Bank (Individual Accountability Framework) Act 2023 that was signed into law on 9 March last year.
Introducing the legislation, Minister of State Sean Fleming explicitly stated that the entire rationale behind it was to make ‘individuals in financial services firms more responsive and responsible by enhancing individual accountability in decision-making at all levels, particularly at senior levels in financial institutions.’
He went on to highlight one of its most important provisions; the introduction of the individual accountability framework, comprising the senior executive accountability regime, or SEAR, for individuals performing certain functions.
When it was finally debated in the Seanad, Senator Michael McDowell’s views was that “what we are doing as well is saying that, in future, it will not matter whether the bank itself, or the insurance company or otherwise, is found to have misbehaved or fallen beneath the relevant standards, and that the Central Bank can go after individuals working in those firms.”
I thought about that this week when, as Gript’s Ben Scallan reported, Taoiseach Simon Harris spoke of his wish not to ‘personalise’ the OPW’s role in the Leinster House bike shelter fiasco.
Taoiseach Simon Harris has said he doesn’t want to “personalise” the investigation into the overspend on the €336k Leinster House bike shed to “any individual” who may be responsible.https://t.co/mZt0NPU69U
— gript (@griptmedia) September 11, 2024
But isn’t that a bit rich considering it is precisely what his government set out to do with respect to the senior executives in banks and financial institutions.
Harris may say, “I don’t mean to personalise it to any individual,” but isn’t that the whole thrust and indeed one of the driving motivations behind the senior executive accountability regime.
SEAR, let us not be coy here, was designed to introduce fear as well as accountability into individual persons. To say, listen lads and ladies, you can no longer get away with trotting out some disingenuous version of an institutional alibi. From now on if you are guilty of wrongdoing we are coming after you personally, etc.
It does not take a genius to see the steel fist inside such velvet glove expressions as ‘making individuals in financial services firms more responsive and responsible’ and ‘enhancing individual accountability.’
Now I am not saying that the person or persons who signed off on the bike shelter committed any wrongdoing per se, at least in the strictly procedural or procurement sense of the word. They may very well have done so but we will only know that for sure ‘in due course’ as the ministers are want to say.
What I am saying is that here we have, in The Central Bank (Individual Accountability Framework) Act 2023 and the senior executive accountability regime a legislative format that likely exceeds any of the existing codes of conduct currently applicable to senior civil servants operating in the OPW and elsewhere.
Minister Fleming said as much when he acknowledged that the Bill’s provisions are a necessary additional enforcement tool for the Central Bank of Ireland, and that “while the enforcement and penalty decisions of the bank will continue to be guided by considerations of fairness and proportionality, the Bill would introduce “enhancements to the Central Bank’s existing supervisory and enforcement frameworks.”
Is it time I wonder that we had similar legislative ‘enhancements’ for the OPW that has an annual budget rapidly approaching €1 billion?
Or do we perhaps need to take a step back and reflect a bit more lest we cross the line in our entirely reasonable demand for accountability.
Michael McDowell had sensible words to say on these dangers when he concluded his remarks on the Central Bank Bill by stating his belief that the powers granted through it “are excessive, and not balanced.”
The Central Bank, he said, “prints money, effectively, and individuals who, for instance, might be suspended from their jobs and find themselves defenceless, are provided with no system of defending their good name, or their financial well-being because they are liable to massive penalties, or their right to be employed in financial services in the future. This is overkill legislation.”
It is no easy thing to strike a balance between our demand for enhanced (or any) accountability while avoiding ‘overkill legislation’ in the process.
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