

 Red Cross
   as Chairman of
the Irish Red Cross Society (IRCS) following
Villages October article calling for him to step
aside in view of issues of corporate governance
and propriety including the mysteriously-de-
layed payment of funds raised for the Asian
tsunami, under his watch. At a meeting on 
November of the central council David Andrews
referred to “wretched scribes.
The Secretary General, under dispropor-
tionate pressure over a yet-to-be-announced
deficit of , to , Euro, resigned
too. The resignations were treated in the
press as part of a pre-arranged process but
in fact the Chairman had recently been re-ap-
pointed; and the tenure of both the Chairman
and Secretary General had a significant time to
run. Neither would have resigned had a crisis
not arisen. In an apparently unrelated move,
Judge Rory McCabe resigned. Since our last
edition, the organisation has decided to make
four out of  staff working on the domestic
side - including the critically important head
of its highly-regarded community services -
compulsorily redundant. Other staff may suf-
fer pay cuts and disimprovements in working
conditions, though Unions are resisting them,
with some success. Meanwhile, the control-
ling executive committee members led by Tony
Lawlor and Des Kavanagh remain in place.
In our October article we drew attention
to the Sisyphean reform process whereby –
just before a report recommending rotation
of the executive committee is published - the
Secretary General moves on; and the process
has to be re-instigated. A report on reform
was produced in November for a meeting of
the central council. The council itself would
become a “General Assembly” and crucially
its membership could only serve two succes-
sive three-year terms before being required
to retire for a year. Sources told Village the
danger with this is that it was a mandate
for calcified existing members of the cen-
tral council to sit out another six years on
the new General Assembly. This would be
unhealthy.
A climate of fear and of distrust between
staff and the Executive Committee prevails,
partly because of the mystery surrounding
the resignations of a number of Secretaries
General; and partly because in the past, where
details of poor governance have been leaked
to the media, key staff have been combatively
interrogated about it.
The IRCS benefits from extraordinary pub-
lic goodwill. Over €, has already been
raised for flood response with expectations of
another €,.
In the Dail on  December Brian O’Shea TD
asked Willie O’Dea, the Minister for Defence,
if he had satisfied himself that the IRCS had
in place specific plans and structures to expe-
ditiously and economically deploy the large
sums of money being collected to deal with the
recent floods. The Minister said it did.
Nevertheless, despite denials by the
Minister and by the IRCS itself - for example
on TV’s afternoon programme at the begin-
ning of December - where a specific pledge was
given that funds would be disbursed within 
hours, specific plans were not in place ten days
later (three weeks after the first floods) – a long
time in disaster relief.
In the case of previous floods in Ireland
the IRCS simply administered a government-
funded scheme. In the case of the recent floods,
however, the IRCS has solicited funds for itself
for redistribution. In Mid-December the Irish
Red Cross started accepting applications
from people in need of financial assistance. It
published ads saying applicants would not be
means-tested but that an assessment process
would be carried out to determine beneficiaries
and amounts. It said payments from the fund
will be considered independently of any com-
pensation or assistance people might get. This
would seem on the face of it to undermine the
basis of needs-based relief. It augurs badly for
the process.
The central issue is that key members of
the executive committee are more interested
in first aid and in purchasing ambulances
than in domestic and overseas relief efforts.
Ambulances have cost up to €m annually in
recent years – €, in the last year - and
have often been subsidised, sometimes even
insisted upon, by central government includ-
ing by its Galway-based Minister, Eamon O’
Cuív. Ambulances had for some time before
its recent liquidation been bought without the
benefit of any proper competitive tendering
process from Tom Hogan Motors in Galway.
Mr Hogan is a friend of Des Kavanagh, former
IRCS Treasurer, though there is no reason to
think that the friendship did anything other
than work to the advantage of the IRCS.
The Irish Red Cross, worthy as it is and
despite so many excellent volunteers on the
ground, unrivalled public goodwill and the
beginnings of institutional reform, has a long
way to travel to fulfil the mandate and the repu-
tational premium it enjoys in Ireland.
:
   


 Red Cross

As long ago as 1999 nine
of the staff came together
on RTÉ News to call on the
Government to set up an
investigation into the running
of the charity.
Shoddy governance, low staff
morale and a rash of inexplicable
resignations at the Red Cross
mean it’s time for a change.
MICHAEL SMIT H
      


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Village,



    
        

Village






Village

ILLUSTRATION: GETTY IMAGES
Chairman and Secretary General resign following Village article
Villages November article

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