Quango CEO Quits!

According to The Examiner - 12/12/08 - "THE chief executive of the Equality Authority has resigned in protest at recent cuts in its budget."

Niall Crowley wrote to both the Chairwoman of the EA and to the Justice Minister to inform them of this decision.

In a letter tendering his resignation, Mr Crowley said: "I have been forced into this action by the manner in which I believe the Equality Authority has been rendered unviable by the decision of the Minister to cut its funding by 43 per cent and to continue decentralisation of its staff.

"The work of the Equality Authority has been fatally compromised by the strategy of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in the Government's budget."

It sounds as if somebody has upset someone else, not been playing ball between the Department and the EA OR vica versa. One could be conspiratorial and say with such big cuts and fragmentation of staff that someone somewhere was trying to slowly close down the EA.

In relation to last paragraph - See this:

Mr Crowley said the "only credible explanation" for such treatment of the Agency was that some of its case load, "particularly in relation to allegations of discrimination in the public sector, has been experienced as a threat by senior civil servants".

Heres the link to the news article in the Examiner:

Irish Examiner | Irish News | News from Ireland

AND The more comprehensive Irish Times article:

Irish Times

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Beamish & Crawford ... A possible rescue from quangocracy!

IRELAND: It seems Fine Gael Cork North Central TD Bernard Allen has been busy. Speaking on the Adjournment Debate in the Dáil tonight( 10/12/08 ) it seems their could be a chance for Beamish & Crawford to remain brewing at the famous site. This involves a possible buy out of B & C by SAB/Miller.

Deputy Allen said tonight: "Heineken's decision to close down its former competitor in Cork, the Beamish & Crawford Brewery, makes the Competition Authority look very incompetent for approving the takeover ... Various media outlets have reported that SAB/Miller, a former partner of Beamish & Crawford, may be interested in buying the brewery from Heineken and continuing production of its brands from the site."

http://www.finegael.ie/news/index.cfm/type/details/nkey/36168/pkey/653

So can this incompetent Competition Authority quango, the Government and Mary Coughlan - all together now - look into this possibility as maybe they should have and at least entertain this potential rescue package .. We await!

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Oh look, its another one .. Emissions quota per Citizen proposed!

From the Sunday Business post:

http://www.thepost.ie/breakingnews/ireland/mhidsngbkfoj/ - ( 08/12/2008 )

This time its COMHAR - The Government's Sustainable Development Council. Comhar are part of the Department for Environment, Heritage and Local Government. Comhar started off in 1999

"Comhar has proposed a new system to help reduce Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the scheme, a cap would be set each year on the amount of greenhouse gases that fuel suppliers are allowed to emit.

All adults would then get certificates entitling them to an equal share of the emissions and allowing them to sell the certificates if they use less than their allocation.

The idea has been submitted to the Environment Minister John Gormley for consideration."

And so, stopping on the way to Dublin at Josephine's in Urlingford, trading certificates with other drivers out back near the bicycle shed :)

Yet another Quango trying to come up with a plan to roll in some cash and justify their existence. Maybe someday we will all have our very own Quango following us around .. a sort of guardian angel!

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Yet another Quango initiated disaster?

Well - what can I say. Looks like some more of these Quango's - the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, Bord Bia - have "over cooked" the pork. Top marks for message delivery and a PR disaster.

OK - yes, the government must champion the public health, but now, having done this, it transpires they may have injured a fragile economy further.

One thing I notice with Government AND with the Quango's is the LACK OF JOINED UP THINKING. In this case proper thinking with respect to ALL the potential consequences of one acton - Public Health, the Economic consequences.

It turns out now that only 10% of Pig Production is affected by this South East Feed Companies errant ways? Surely a limited destruction of pig produce around the affected farms, producers and processors would have been more appropriate. From what I have heard it appears that the Food Safety Authority of Irelands Tracability System is not as gold star as it could be. The spot checks are not as many OR as frequent as would be necessary and the Tracability System is not comprehensive enough to narrow down in a guaranteed way, where the questionable produce is at any one time. The excuse I heard is - "Shur Its not like that anywhere else in the world". So is that a good enough excuse?

No doubt - now that we have our quangofied system in place the appropriate Government Department will proceed to buck pass to the FSAI, Bord Bia ....

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Beamish and Crawford .. its been Quangofied??

And so it has come to pass - that venerable, traditional Cork City Brewery Institution is to be closed by another younger traditional Cork City Brewery which itself was taken over 25 years ago or so. Murphys Brewery aka Heinekin recently took over BEAMISH & CRAWFORD ... the ink is hardly dry on the documents when today ( 4/12/2008 ) Heinekin announces they are closing BEAMISH & CRAWFORD .. For good:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1204/breaking77.htm

As I said on other forums:

And one also has to ask about the Competition Authorities role in all of this. They allowed one stout manufacturer IN THE SAME CITY to take over another one. And the real irony - Beamish were under license brewing Miller, Fosters and Carling - so Heinekin / Murphys for a while were brewing their own competition. Laughable - even my neice of 4 could have told the competition authority what the net result of this takeover was going to be.So yet another of the 800 or so useless quangos has buried another business and added to the dole queue further.

This is indeed a black day in the History of Cork City - "Beamish & Crawford is located on South Main Street in Cork city centre and is the oldest operating brewery in Ireland. It began trading there in the 1690s." - from Irish Times above.

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