Court of Auditors position:DEPARTMENT OF Finance secretary general Kevin Cardiff faces a grilling by MEPs in Brussels this afternoon as they scrutinise his nomination to Ireland's seat in the European Court of Auditors.
He will answer questions for some 45 minutes before the committee on budgetary control in the European Parliament, which has the right to accept or reject his nomination.
The hearing comes in the wake of criticism within the Government parties of Mr Cardiff’s nomination after the discovery that the department had mistakenly overstated the national debt by €3.6 billion.
The post in the Luxembourg-based court, which oversees the EU’s accounts, carries an annual remuneration package worth about €276,000.
Mr Cardiff, a key figure in the then government’s deliberations on the September 2008 banking guarantee, said in response to a questionnaire from the committee that issues related to the “financial sector” ranked among the three most important decisions he was party to in his career.
“Ireland has had to make huge adjustments to deal with a mutually reinforcing set of crises in the economy and the fiscal situation, in the financial sector and in society generally,” he wrote.
“As secretary general of the Department of Finance, and in previous positions within the department, I have been involved with ministers and government in a large number of important decisions made in a very short period of time. In more usual circumstances, any one of those decisions might be the biggest issue in an official’s career.”
On the financial sector specifically, he said: “I have . . . advised the minister for finance, other ministers and the government in relation to the banking crisis and the national responses in relation to liquidity guarantees and capital adequacy, the nationalisation of certain financial institutions, the establishment of a National Asset Management Agency, the restructuring of the banking system following Europe’s most detailed and granular stress tests, and the ongoing management of a programme to restore health to the banking system.”
In relation to fiscal and economic issues, he said he was involved in “key decisions” to address fiscal consolidation and advised on the level and pace of consolidation as well as in the development of a national economic and fiscal plan to deal decisively with the crisis situation.
Mr Cardiff also cited his work on the EU-IMF bailout plan. “I have been closely involved in all the discussions with the EU and IMF parties on the programme of support, including the decision that Ireland should seek support, and in relation to the ongoing process of agreeing and meeting programme targets and making the programme a success.”
Although Labour MEPs Nessa Childers and Phil Prendergast and Fine Gael MEP Seán Kelly have questioned the Government’s nomination of Mr Cardiff, there are no Irish members on the committee.
However, UK Independence Party MEP Marta Andreasen, who is on the committee, has called for his appointment to be withdrawn.