Who IS Kevin Cardiff and why was Nessa Childers threatened?

I was glad the Court of Auditors rejected this man. There were too many questions relating to his competence. Maybe that's a harsh judgement given what Brendan has said about him, but we have got to stop rewarding failure and start sending clear messages about responsibility.

Trevor Sargent set a good political example of what should be normal in this country, and is very normal across the water. Everyone from the top down should have cards clearly marked, failure or subtantial errors should carry a serious penalty.
 
Interesting thing will be to see if the government try to force through the nomination or does European democracy work. They obviously don't want him around because of his record so let's see how the public sector deal with him. Probably the same as the private sector. Large pay off and big pension.
 
Good news! for who?
we're stuck with him here now....so there may be 2 top dog's now in the Dept of Finance both drawing down the top salary, eventual pay-offs etc
Or he may get a big package to go now

either way, the Irish Taxpayer takes the hit
 
Apparantly it's still not a given that he won't get the job.
Prioneas De Rossa is still going to push for him to get it.
 
horusd said:
Trevor Sargent set a good political example of what should be normal in this country, and is very normal across the water. Everyone from the top down should have cards clearly marked, failure or subtantial errors should carry a serious penalty.
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I disagree. I really don't know whether there are people who never make errors or whether they have deluded themselves into thinking they never make errors, but resignations en masse each time an organisation makes a mistake will leave no one to actually run the place.

Now there are serious levels of incompetence in evidence everywhere that the public can judge quite easily, e.g. RTEs complete lack of solid evidence before setting out to ruin a man's reputation, Anglo's loans to direactors breaching limits, Brian Cowen hungover on radio, etc. These are the type of things that heads should roll for.

Equally there are very innocent errors that don't signal imcompetence or wrongdoing. I'm not saying the €3.6bn misstatement of the national debt is the perfect example of one, but it's not as outrageuos as the likes of Sinn Fein and the media would lead us to believe.

There is an awful lot of sanctimonious outrage on relatively minor issues recently, and the over reactions actually take away from the outrage we should feel about the genuine wrongdoings that have crippled the country. I think we'd all need to think carefully about the extent to which we might make honest mistakes ourselves with little or no negative consequences.
 
I don't have a problem with the €3.6 billion. I do have a problem with his record in the Department on banking issues. He will probably blame the regulator and say it wasn't his fault though.

The biggest problem I have though is that it is obvious that Noonan does not want him in the Department for some reason. But instead of holding his performance to account in a fair and objective way, it is easier to send him over to Europe into a highly paid job. If he is not good enough for the Department of Finance, he is not enough for the EU.
 
Padraigb said:
Do you actually know what his record is?
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Yes, he was in charge/worked closely with the Minister when formulating the Departments banking policy during the crisis. He is as much to blame for the decisions made as Cowan and Lenihan are. Both of whom have been publically slaughtered for their roles. That's why as Secretary General he got paid nearly €300,000. He is supposed to take responsibility.

I have no doubt he has had a distinguished career and has done the Country some great service but the fact remains, he was in charge when decisions were made on the banks that have proven to be disasterous.

And now, the new Government decide they don't want him in the role and think that they can just send him off to Europe. It's Charlie McCreevey all over again....
 
Just for the laugh, here's a post on independent.ie. The first guy feels he is qualified to judge the seriousness of the issue despite not knowing what a billion even is, and 16 others gave him the thumbs up.

Eamon92 5 hours ago
Has this Country gone mad.. Congratulations Mr. Cardiff for making an error of €3,600,000,000,000 here have a promotion.
Gemma and 15 more liked this

Brine Clown 3 hours ago in reply to Eamon92
The modern day billion has been standardised to the US model which is a thousand million (1,000,000,000) as opposed to the million million (1,000,000,000,000) you have quoted. So it's only an error of €3,600,000,000 !
I'm glad you're not doing the accounts!
 
Sunny said:
He is supposed to take responsibility.
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Nobody in Ireland takes responsibility. That is why we are destined to fail. The govt are very keen to see the back of Mr Cardiff alright. Cheaper to send him to Europe than to pay him off - which would cost a heck of a lot of money.
 
The gov.t is showing serious hubris in pushing this to the plenary session. He was a bad choice to begin with, they should accept the rejection and move on. Europe already got an Irish cast-off in the form of Charlie McCreevey, they don't need another one.
 

Sunny, I am in no way defending Kevin Cardiff's actions or his role in the decisions made over the past 10 years, but he took over as Secretary General of the Dept. of Finance in Feb 2010. It appears from the bits that have come out that the Department were very much against a bank guarantee. In the end, the blanket bank guarantee was scrutinised and approved by the houses of the oireachtas and not the Dept. of Finance. If anything, those elected to the Dail and Seanad were much more responsible than Kevin Cardiff was. We also must remember why the guarantee was put in place. The banks met with Lenihan and Cowen, told them of their serious issues and that they would go bang and bring the country with them unless Government stepped in. The banks also lied about their financial situation and I'd imagine if Lenihan knew the full picture as we do now, a blanket bank guarantee would have been the last thing he would propose.
 
RonanC said:
The banks also lied about their financial situation and I'd imagine if Lenihan knew the full picture as we do now, a blanket bank guarantee would have been the last thing he would propose.
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While you're probably right, it was the job of Lenihan and those around him to know what the truth was about these banks, and not have to rely on the honesty of these crooks.
 
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