There has been shock and anger at the news that Tanaiste Mary Coughlan handed out a massive 'golden goodbye' to disgraced FAS boss Rody Molloy as if it were sweets to a child.
It's no surprise to see old crony Brian Cowen voicing his "total confidence" in Coughlan. He is, after all, the person to whom she owes her elevation to her highest level of incompetence so far. It is, however, instructive to see the mock outrage of the panhandlers on the Public Accounts Committee, who are studiously avoiding the real FAS scandal - how the employment agency could have maintained a €1 billion budget over the years of full employment.
If you wanted an object lesson in how Bertie, Mary and Brian "blew the boom," you could do worse than study this massive fraud on the taxpayer. A fraud, by the way, that never disturbed the calm of the aforesaid Public Accounts Committee during all the years it was being perpetrated.
Forget the petty embezzlement of public money that this backhander to Molloy represents; the real crime is the diversion of truly vast sums of money to a public sector body that (on any objective basis) has been failing for years at what it was supposed to be doing - training the young and unemployed for lasting, productive careers - and that was, it claimed, spending this money on a problem that clearly didn't exist during the 'tiger' years; namely, mass unemployment.
So where did the money go? Under criminal law the answer is simple. It was embezzled. So forget the sacking of Coughlan (which should have happened years ago), or seeking the resignation of the board (Social Partnership freeloaders), instead ask yourself what the Germans, Swiss or Americans would have done under the same circumstances? And if you say, send in the fraud squad and have these crooks in shackles doing the 'perp' walk on TV, you are exactly right.
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