The appointment of Celia Larkin to the interim board of the National Consumer Agency has unsurprisingly generated much comment. This piece in the Examiner by Pat Brosnan identifies it as a piece of cronyism of the most blatant variety. The last minute sly way the appointment was made indicate that this was indeed a "chronic" case. John Burns has an even more critical and detailed treatment in the Sunday Times where cronyism is situated as a "defining feature of Irish political life". Just like Britain has Tony's cronies, Ireland gets "Bertie's buddies".
This is not a recent phenomenon and every party operates this system when in government. Burns makes the sensible point that such appointments be made by an independent public body and also calls for an end to the practise of making loads of appointments during the final days in office. Would any opposition party like to include this in their programme for government and actually try and make it stick after they take up office? This would be very radical indeed and could begin to alter the behaviour of political parties that are primarily orientated towards office seeking. If party leaders who have their hands on the levers of power are precluded from offering jobs for their mates then maybe they'll have to think of other ways of winning votes and/or pursuing a policy agenda.
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