The MacGill Summer School has made available the speech of Michael Somers, formerly of the NTMA and presently non-executive director of AIB – it is available here (consult the index to start the video at the appropriate point). The speech briefly deals with the decline and fall of the Church from the State’s power hierarchy and the pretty sorry state of the remaining power structures in the hierarchy – government and the civil service. Government suffers from lack of checks and balances – whilst other democracies have worked hard to separate the executive from the legislature, we seem to have done a good job fusing them together. And did you know that our Constitution allows government terms of up to seven years, and it is only from a 1927 piece of legislation that it was reduced to five – Michael says that our government could reverse that piece of legislation very quickly so the 2012 election might become a 2014 election. On the civil service, Michael criticises the calibre of the staff and the poor image of the civil service which is partly to blame for its failure to attract better calibre individuals.
Whereas Paddy Kelly’s speech at MacGill was like Father Ted’s acceptance speech at the Golden Clerics awards (To all the people who fecked me over down the years. And now, The Twats – that would have been ACC Bank, Bord Pleanala and NAMA’s John Mulcahy in case you missed Paddy’s speech), Michael Somers’ speech was more philosophical and avoided personal attacks and he dealt with one aspect of the national character that is not conducive to getting things done and that is our pre-occupation with process at the expense of getting things done. So to all those New Age nutters talking about the journey being more important than the destination, Michael’s message is that the destination should always be at the fore of our thinking. His words of wisdom on NAMA seem to come, not from his speech but from an interview with the MSM afterwards. In that interview he again returns to a theme from his speech – that we Irish are focussed on process rather than results. He characterises NAMA as “bizarre” in the way one State agency NAMA takes loans from another State-owned body, Anglo with the only benefiting being the professionals used to facilitate the transfer and management of the loans. He goes on to say that whilst he didn’t object to NAMA, he thinks that a better solution would have been to armlock the banks into dealing with their own impaired loans.
Oh and the Gordon’s Gin. Michael is fond of his gin – he’s “long on gin” in his own words. He seems to be an expert at international price comparison of this commodity. His experience is that you can get the green bottle of the good stuff for €10.60 in Germany, €17.50 in France and it costs €28.95 here (€25 sometimes when it’s discounted). His more serious point was that we are still a very costly country (unit of electricity Kwh costs 8c in France compared with 14c here, GP appointment €22 in France versus €45 here and our hourly legal and accounting costs of €700 compare with the most expensive cities in the world). Michael called for a realignment of our costs though he was short on the practicalities of realising this.
NAMA Wine Lake 