23On articles about Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland in issues  and  of Village

March 2015 23

On articles about Royal Institute of the

Architects of Ireland in issues

 and  of Village

Dear Editor:

I refer to the above and, given that both articles make

repeated references to myself, request publication of

this letter.

Perhaps your reference to me as a “disenfranchised

and irritable ex-President of the RIAI” is fair enough –

Goodness knows, I have cause for irritation! and being

reminded of the great H.L. Mencken who wrote in his

own obituary “As he got older, he got worse” – well,

one takes your phrase on the chin, even if, as it’s been

ten years since we last spoke, somebody must have fed

you the line. Somebody a teeny bit unfair, my being,

after all, normally as sweet as apple pie …

That’s not the point.

I’ve been a member of the RIAI and paid my annual

subscription for an unbroken 33 years hitherto; and

as President in 1998-1999, am still occasionally ﬂat-

tered to be told that, all in all, well, I wasn’t the worst

of them. Some interest therefore, some keen concern,

but more for my architect and technologist colleagues

than for the organisation itself. Because, Mr. Editor, to

paraphrase James Connolly’s remarks about Ireland:

to those of us who resigned, the RIAI is nothing with-

out its members, a vocational group which no less than

some but more than most, has suﬀered greatly through

forced emigration, decimation of livelihoods and crip-

pling depression for the past seven years. Because

when insiders put an organisation’s interests before

the public interest, we’re all in trouble.

The Garda Síochána, over wire-tapping and penalty

points; the Churches, over child abuse; Rehab, over

taxpayers’ concerns about money. None of us who

resigned wanted a “Rehab situation” – as you said. And

for ten months we strove in private to avoid that.

So what, then?

Furthermore, since 2007 the RIAI has functions

conferred upon it by law. A statutory organization,

charged with regulating architects in the public inter-

est; in receipt of substantial taxpayers’ funds; with the

power of professional life and death over its members.

The Registrar, as creature of statute, maintains the

statutory register of architects. This isn’t some kind

of gloriﬁed golf club.

Let’s look at all this from the taxpayer’s viewpoint.

The issue is simple:- money and how it’s spent. Income;

expenditure; transparency with public funds; account-

ability for public funds.

That is what those of us who resigned sought in pri-

vate for ten months and didn’t get.

In 2013, from a total income to the RIAI of just

under €3m, over €1m. came from public funds.

Please understand, for clarity and to avoid any mis-

understanding, that this correspondence does not

suggest any impropriety or negligence on the part of

any person. We asked questions, sought answers, and

feel we didn’t get them. The questions remain. This all

should and could have been sorted in private.

Before we resigned from the RIAI Council, neither

the Council nor the RIAI Remuneration Committee

knew the salary of the Registrar/CEO. And not for want

of asking. An absurd situation – in a golf club; in my

view, an unacceptable one, where a person has statu-

tory duties.

Before we resigned, companies controlled by parties

connected to a senior employee got half a million over

six or so years. Uproar – if in a golf club; but what in

an organisation with power conferred by statute, and

in receipt of public funds?

The Institute does a great job of employing and

training young architects on behalf of OPW, Depart-

ment of Education, County Councils and other public

bodies. It receives a management fee for this work.

Why these young people aren’t employed directly by

the State is beyond me; and the public procurement

and employment procedures are of legitimate public

interest.

Your “...the annual personal RIAI credit-card bill

for the Registrar/CEO in some years being some tens

of thousands of euro” was new to me.

I have been told there’s good reason for this payment

method. But we can all agree that tens of thousands of

euro yearly sounds like a lot of money on any one per-

son’s credit card, and one would have thought there

might be more cost-eﬀective ways of making large

payments.

The RIAI, a registered charity, has charitable tax

designation status. Privilege confers responsibility.

Those who resigned want the RIAI to be exemplary in

its ﬁnancial management.

This is the only sustainable Way Forward. So all the

money spent on salaries in the Annual Accounts for

2013 deposited in the CRO might best be posted under

the heading “Salaries” and not some posted elsewhere.

Public and membership alike have a right to know.

Mr Editor there were other reasons for my/our res-

ignations also. Some of a more “golf-club” nature - and

some similar to the above. You yourself linked the res-

ignations with the current debacle of building control

regulations. (Same Government department, huge

public concern, but diﬀerent issue.)

You’re not to be blamed, for that’s the way some

people wanted it portrayed. The Registrar/CEO was

reported as saying we “did the honourable thing”,

implying we resigned because we lost an EGM motion,

not proposed by us anyway and in advance of any

vote. Golf club stuﬀ! I think he sort of retracted his

commendation afterwards – and I’m confused as to

whether he now thinks the resignations were honour-

able, or dishonourable, or something in between … But

that’s not the point.

All of this should have been and could have been

dealt with in private. It wasn’t the resigners who

leaked our detail concerns to the public.

You are quite right about our reluctance to “publicly

discredit the Institute”. Hence, my silence after your

ﬁrst article. But this has gone far enough.

Yours faithfully,

Eoin O Cofaigh

Upper Mount Street

Dublin 2

March 2015

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