Madam, - I regret Rody Molloy's decision to resign from Fás. Mr. Molloy has played an important part for a generation in developing the Irish economy. In his various roles he has contributed in crucial ways to saving and creating thousands of Irish jobs. The CEO of Fás must engage at the highest level with leading-edge technological and corporate institutions around the world, if Ireland is to be a centre of excellence for high-tech skills and thus a magnet for international job-creating investment. NASA is an excellent example.
Anyone who thinks this should or can happen without pro-actively creating and cultivating those relationships, or without the corresponding travel, representational and entertainment expenses, is simply not prepared to deal with the reality of today's unforgivingly competitive world. I sincerely hope that the woman or man who follows him will continue to pursue Mr Molloy's goals with the same drive and flair.
I hope also that she or he will not be intimidated into not doing her or his duty by the "outrage" of recent days. Should that happen or should the Government cravenly appoint a timid and "reliable" mouse to the job, the consequences will simply be that those training skills will go elsewhere in the world, that the children of other nations will get the corresponding high-tech jobs and that ours will not. The mouse will, of course, survive.
Mr. Molloy and I worked together in the Irish Permanent Representation in Geneva 20 years ago. We subsequently went separate ways and I have not communicated with him in any way since then. He represented the Department of Industry and Commerce in the GATT negotiations of those years which had life-or-death implications for existing Irish jobs and for job creation here. He was an indefatigable and extraordinarily effective negotiator who won the respect and the affection of his colleagues from all the countries of the UN, those representing large and smaller countries from both outside and inside the European Community and whose interests often conflicted with ours. More often than not Mr Molloy and the Irish economy came out winning. As did the European Community when, during the Irish Presidency, Mr Molloy chaired the Community co-ordination on trade negotiations.
I can vouch for the fact that Mr Molloy and several colleagues regularly used their personal funds to cover part of their official entertainment duties when, as frequently happened, the official funds for these purposes were inadequate.
We are a nation, like all nations, of many talents. The fact is, however, that people with Mr Molloy's talents and patriotic energy are scarce in both the public and private sectors, as much here as elsewhere. Now, even more than during the good years, we need his kind of energetic commitment. No one has suggested that he corruptly benefited from Fás. Should it have been - as it was not - that in the view of his board he had been unwise in the management of his expenses, he should have been required to repay any amounts that might have been judged inappropriate. He should not have been driven out.
As for Minister Harney's hairdo, it seems to me to be the equivalent to a male official charging the hire of a dinner jacket while on a business trip in order to attend an event of importance to his country. Even as one who never warmed to all aspects of her party's ideology, I say shame on those who are seeking her political destruction because of this absurd and utterly unworthy pretext.
Our economy is now in a fight for survival. We must not allow uninformed, populist, hypocritical or politically motivated puritanism to discourage those who are fighting for us on the front lines of job creation from doing what is necessary to win opportunity for our country in a shrinking but ever more competitive world market. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL LILLIS
Dartmouth Square, Dublin 6
Madam, - The Fás shenanigans are nothing new. On a visit to New York in 1976 my wife and I went to the restaurant at the Pierre in Manhattan. The maître d' said: "Sorry folks - we're full." We explained that we were there not to dine (it was the city's most expensive restaurant), but simply to carry fraternal greetings from the staff at the old Lafayette Restaurant in the Royal Hibernian to one Henry Manassero at the Pierre. We assumed he was one of the waiters but, it turned out, he was the general manager of the hotel.
We were instantly shown to the VIP table - and the main reason why the place was full became clear. One very large table was taken by 15 (we counted) members of an Irish government trade-and-industry mission having a rare oul' (lunch)time. - Yours, etc,
MALCOLM ROSS-MACDONALD,
Birr,
Co Offaly
Madam, - If Fine Gael ever wants to be taken seriously as a potential party of government, its spokesmen need to get a grip and desist from the type of asinine performance displayed by Leo Varadkar in calling for the resignation of Mary Harney.
Mr Varadkar's case for the resignation of Minister Mary Harney seems to amount to two things: that the cost of her wash and blow-dry while abroad on government business came out of the Fás budget, rather than her Department's, and that when Enda Kenny was challenging the Taoiseach about a particular bit of beauty treatment paid for by Fás in 2005, Ms Harney did not jump up and point out that it had paid for her hairdo the preceding year.
At a time when there are major financial and economic problems facing this country, many arising from the incompetence of the present administration, it is depressing that the main opposition party feels that the best use of its energy is to expend it in a frenzy of petty political point-scoring. - Yours etc,
FRANK E. BANNISTER,
Morehampton Terrace, Dublin 4.