Savings show transparency is right road

Huge cost reductions after revelations about ministerial use of limos are a fruit of scrutiny

IN A piece here last October in favour of eTransparency, I argued that the online release of public sector-generated data would transform levels of accountability in politics and in the public sector generally. I wrote the column in the context of news stories last autumn about TDs’ expenses and ministerial travel. However, I also wrote them in the context of the McCarthy report.

In seeking to illustrate the potential that online availability of public data had for revealing and then changing behaviour, I suggested that, if monthly budgets for each of our embassies had been published online, we would have seen that several hundred euro was spent on sending an official and a limo to meet a minister each time one landed in their territory and the practice would have ceased long ago.

It appears the capacity for the publication of expenditure details to change behaviour and save money was greater that I imagined. Last Monday, the Irish Independentreported that costs incurred by the Irish Embassy in London in hiring chauffeur-driven cars was reduced from an average of €130,00 in 2007 and 2008 to just €15,191 in 2009. The article set out how this 86 per cent saving was achieved. It appears there was a protocol whereby a limo was hired to bring an official out to greet any minister travelling through Heathrow on official business even if the minister was only transferring from one terminal to another.

While it was not apparent from the tone of Monday’s story, the newspaper clarified on Tuesday, apparently at the request of John O’Donoghue, that the protocol applying to transfer between terminals applied to all ministers and was set by the London Embassy and the Department of Foreign Affairs. The clarification also stated that the former minister was not aware of the total costs of the transport hire.

One could argue that when travelling in a car from one terminal to another, ministers should have considered whether the facility was costing the taxpayer but they could be forgiven for thinking they were in the ambassador’s State-provided car or some vehicle from a standing Embassy car pool.

The Irish Independent'sfollow-up story illustrates that O'Donoghue and others were somewhat unfairly treated in all those headlines suggesting that they were personally responsible for this spending or wastage. More importantly, however, the scale of the saving made by the Embassy in 2009 illustrates how powerful publication or the fear of publication can be in transforming the decision-making process as to how public money is spent.

While each journey is still assessed on a case-by-case basis by the Embassy, most delegations use the airport shuttle bus. Considerable savings have also been made by investing €28,554 in a seven-seater people carrier which has already more than earned its keep.

Some of these cost-saving initiatives were introduced before newspaper stories about the Heathrow transfers were printed but there can be little doubt that the fact that the media were sniffing around set the changes in motion. The Department of Foreign Affairs and the London Embassy are to be complimented for taking the matter in hand. If similar figures were published regularly for all other embassies, departments and agencies, it is likely similar dramatic savings could be made.

In the same piece last October I also suggested that all donations to political parties should be published online. This week former tánaiste and PD leader Michael McDowell characterised media calls for the publication of all political donations as an attempt by media to secure power.

McDowell may have a point. Many commentators seem to deliberately feed cynicism about our politics because they resent having to compete with politicians for space in public debate. I can only speak for myself, however, and I disagree with his view.

McDowell’s critique of the proposals operates on the assumption that publishing donor lists would reduce donations to political parties. This may be the case for those corporations or wealthy persons who have given very large and/or very frequent donations just below the current declaration levels. Given recent history I would argue that discouraging such donations would be a good thing.

Full disclosure may also, as McDowell suggests, deter individual voters who do not want their neighbours to know they gave money to a political party collection or draw. Such small donors could be protected by putting a lower limit of say €100 on the publication requirement. Overall, however, drawing back the veil on political party election funding would be a good thing. Those who donate to politics have nothing to fear from that fact becoming known if the identities of all donors are revealed.

Publication of all, or almost all, donation data is certainly preferable to the alternative of banning donations and switching to a fully State-funded system not least because this, as Dessie O’Malley warned again recently, would operate as a bar to new political movements.

Politicians and public servants have nothing to fear from eTransparency. It would actually be liberating. Making such large volumes of information directly available to the public, unmediated by either spin or journalistic comment, would have a transforming effect. It would amount to real and effective public sector and political reform.