ObsessiveMathsFreak, who trolls the Irish Economy blog from time to time. Superb stuff:
"The [Department of Finance]DoF is conservative only when it wants to be. It’s conservative about the USC and social welfare cuts to be sure. And of course it’s conservative about paying out bonds—banking or state. And it’s really conservative about civil service cuts, naturally.
But when it comes to benchmarking? Public sector pensions? Golden parachutes and public chairmen’s salaries? Well then YIPPIE-KAI-YAY!!, the DoF is about as conservative as a UCD student house party. Senior department officials have benefited personally, by millions in some cases, from their “compliance” with government policy. Michael Somers alone received €1 million in 2008 for deciding which bank accounts to keep the government kitty in. No wonder they were understaffed; they’re among the most expensive employees in the country!
And now we are supposed to believe that they were reluctant accomplices all along? Bullied underlings haplessly complaining under the hail of lashes and €50 notes that their masters heaped on them? No. Not true. Not good enough.
The Department of Finance officials are as close as any civil servant can possibly come to the mentality, fecklessness, and destructiveness of private sector bankers. Like their banking counterparts, DoF officials paid themselves bonuses from the funds they managed, even as they mis-managed them into utter ruin. Lip service, CYA reports, and deference to the government should not protect them from being held accountable; and accountable they must be held."