Shane Ross uncovers some of the biggest contributors to IBEC in the Sunday Independent today. The main issue for me though is the taxpayer funded organisations and how much they pay in:
An Post pays €123,000 of taxpayer money to IBEC.
The DAA pays €120,000 to IBEC.
The ESB als pays €120,000 to IBEC.
RTE pays €90,000 to IBEC. Is 10 IBECs worth one Pat Kenny?
Bord na Mona pays IBEC €75,000.
Bord Gais pays IBEC €63,000.
Coillte pays IBEC €60,000.
CIE pays IBEC €27,000.
That’s €678,000 of tax money each year going to an organisation that’s very much pro monopolies. I’m not even certain are these all the orgs or just the ones that pay the most.
Going back to the overall article though. Ross mentions how much banks pay in. What about other industries? Where’s the O’Reilly group in this? Do eircom, Vodafone, o2 etc fall under the TIF group which is a satellite of IBEC? Lord knows they pay enough into it to have a Vodafone director state there is no demand for broadband. Right, yeah. Why is Voda bringing out a 3G data card then? Maybe as time goes by the Indo will be less pro-eircom. Maybe.
Are you sure all of these companies get any tax funds?
Tipster; the likes of Bord Gais and An Post may not get taxpayers money directly, but their poor financial management (and wasteful overspending) has many ‘indirect’ negative effects for taxpayers: 1) it deprives us of the profit they should make (if they were anyway good, they’d be chipping in a €1bn a year to the exchequer), 2) it raises the cost of their services – if they were run more prudently prices could be lower (train fares, bus fares, airport landing costs etc.), 3) their cushy ways waste our top managerial talent and deprive the private sector of many great managers – look at what Eddie O’Conner is doing with Airtricity, he was wasted by comparision at Bord na Mona.
In fairness the sums involved with IBEC (€90k or so) are small change for these bodies, but IHO it just highlights the vast number of inefficencies and the reckless lavish spending that is so endemic in our semi states. Its hard to know what the solution is – privatisation failed to completely change Eircom (still a rip off, failing to invest in its services and infastructure), but perhaps Eircom whould have been even worse (is that possible) if it stayed state owned. Massive competitive pressures, near bankruptcy and huge industry change seemed to have been the right cocktail for Aer Lingus.
Two points.
Something that occurred to me after my last comment on Damien’s posting is that I wonder if Senator Ross will follow this with an investigation into how much the privately owned companies that receive IDA support (as in, taxpayer’s money) pay into IBEC.
The problems Ciaran names in his comment can and should be addressed independently of IBEC membership. I am no fan of IBEC, but if it is going to be hit, I think it should be hit with the correct arguments (which Ross does make a stab at) rather than a spurious one.