Out of touch and in need of radical reform

Businessman Tom Murphy looks at the government's U-turn on the AIB bonus, Biffo's salary cut and a need for radical reform.

I’m delighted the government has finally stepped in - with a little bit of common sense - to issue a letter to AIB stating they will not pay out the bonus. It took them a long time to get to that stage but it was badly needed. It showed how out of touch the key decision makers really are but, to put it bluntly, they didn’t have the balls to do what was right for Ireland early on. That galls me.

The General Election is expected in March (barring a disaster prior to that) but I believe an election is no good whatsoever without radical reform of the government. There needs to be a complete root and branch investigation of the size, the cost, the accountability and the lack of governance that we are saddled with at the moment in Ireland.

The election should be held at a weekend, preferably on a Saturday or Sunday. There should be no overtime or double time for those who work in organising the election. Most of those employed during the actual election should come from the live register if it is deemed appropriate that they are sufficiently proficient in organising the election.

Democracy

There should be no goodbye payments for TDs. If they don’t get elected, then that’s the decision of the people and there should be no payment whatsoever. That’s democracy.

The government needs to bin the election of a Mayor of Dublin City. It costs a fortune. If I had my way there wouldn’t be any paid Mayor in any county in Ireland. The local government elected representatives should also be reduced by 50 per cent. There’s no point in having them.

For the sake of democracy, however, the people should have some voice at town council and county council level. But at the moment we are way over represented. For instance, in Mayo we don’t need 31 representatives on Mayo County Council and town council representatives also. It happens everywhere and it needs to be stopped.

The number of TDs should be no more than 100. Of course this won’t happen overnight but the incoming government should have this as a priority. The number of Senators should be slashed by 50 per cent and after this is done there should be a thorough investigation of all the semi-state companies across the country. I agree with the capping of the salaries for the heads of semi-state companies and for TDs and Senators, however, I think we’re missing the big picture here.

When people read in the newspapers that the Taoiseach’s salary is coming down they are going to try to implement the same rule for semi-state companies. Salaries are only one aspect of somebody’s remuneration and you can be certain they will reduce the salaries but they will put up the contributions for pension and expenses etc. The total package will not have come down much in real life. The entire remuneration needs to be tackled and cut.

Tom Murphy is the managing director of Pamex Limited (www.pamex.com)- a successful marketing company specialising in the provision of both prescription pharmaceutical medicines and personal healthcare products to consumers worldwide.

Tom writes a bi-weekly business column for JOE.ie in which he tackles some of the current issues facing businesses and the nation.