Different strokes for different folks when keeping track on rail money

THERE is a rich irony which won’t be lost on Galway County Councillor Michael Fahy after details of shocking levels of fraud were revealed within CIE last week.

Three individuals within the state organisation have been sacked for fraudulent activity that had cost the company more than €650,000, of which €100,000 had been repaid.

Details were thin on the ground from CIE chairman John Lynch – a man hardly out of the headlines these days given his generous retirement package from FÁS before he took up the reins on the trains, so to speak – but there was nothing to indicate a criminal trial or conviction or stretch behind bars for the perpetrators.

Cllr Fahy, on the other hand spent seven months in jail having been sentenced to twelve months imprisonment and fined €75,000 – subsequently reduced to €30,000 – after he was found guilty at Galway Circuit Criminal Court of misappropriating County Council funds and attempted theft.

The amount involved in his case was a fraction over €7,000, and even then it wasn’t cash – it was a fence on his farm...ironically close to the new railway line that will soon link Galway to Limerick.

The rights and wrongs of the Stroke’s case have already been well ventilated in court and nobody would condone wrongdoing, particularly on the part of a public representative.

But there must also be a sense of proportion here and a level of consistency. And if the Stroke deserved twelve months and a €75,000 fine over seven grand’s worth of fencing, then the guys behind the CIE fraud might well expect a fine that would ease the pressure on the Government looking for €1.4 billion in public sector pay cuts.

Senator Shane Ross has already claimed that this fraud is just the tip of the iceberg – and that CIE will do everything in its power from letting us see the iceberg itself – even if CIE’s Barry Kenny dismisses that claim as a slur.

Representatives of Iarnród Éireann and of its parent body, CIE, appeared before the Oireachtas Transport Committee last week after media reports claimed that fraud and malpractice at Iarnrod Eireann could have cost the company close on €9 million.

Iarnród Éireann Chief Executive Dick Fearn broke down the €665,000; €271,000 related to collusion with a contractor, €363,000 to the illegal sale of railway equipment such as sleepers, and €30,000 to invoices for work not done.Three employees were dismissed as a result – but not, apparently, tried for fraud or jailed for what might well be described as theft.

Even worse, it emerged that a consultants' report into procurement practices and financial control had identified total losses to Iarnrod Eireann of €2.6m.

And the company admitted that a draft of the report had estimated the historical loss at €8.7m, but the consultants involved were instructed not to include what Irish Rail described as 'guesstimates' in their final report.

They’re right about one thing – this requires a lot more than a guesstimate. And if €9 million of our cash is unaccounted for, it’s time somebody in CIE stepped up to the plate, if you’ll pardon the pun, and explained who stole it, misappropriated it or stuffed it down the back of a train seat.

If a line of fencing was sufficiently serious to see one man spend seven months in jail, you’d think that the mystery of €9 million disappearing into thin air might at least warrant a Garda investigation.

Diversity the key for great leaders

WHAT exactly do Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King and Simon Cowell have in common? Before you say the X-Factor, the answer is in fact that the three of them made the top ten in a survey of the world’s all-time greatest leaders last week.

The Youth of Today survey, commissioned by the Prince’s Trust, also included John Terry, Moses – that’s the one with the ten commandments as opposed to Remi Moses who played for West Bromwich Albion and Manchester United – and Alan Sugar as great leaders we have known.

What’s wrong with these people? Alan Sugar hasn’t led anything other than a mutiny in the Tottenham Hotspur boardroom. And Simon Cowell has confined his leadership achievements to merely leading young wannabes up the garden path.

Yet Cowell, the man with the trousers up to his very hard neck, drew the same percentage of the votes as Mother Teresa and Henry VIII, whose presence is probably explained by young girls mixing him up with his alter ego Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the Tudors.

Martin Luther King was joined in the top three by Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela, a vote that will surely draw the ire of Nick Griffin and his BNP cronies, given that all three clearly share a skin colouring that was not white.

According to the survey, 70 per cent of teenagers claim they are more likely to be inspired by someone they know than by a celebrity – so presumably they all know Simon Cowell then.Two in three (67 per cent) believe there are more celebrities setting a bad example than a good example today. Which brings us back to Simon Cowell again.

How can a top ten of the world’s greatest leaders – Mandela, MLK, Mother Teresa and Obama – also include John Terry, Simon Cowell and Joanna Lumley, who was indeed a role model when she played Purdy in the Avengers all those years ago?

And where’s Bertie Ahern, the greatest living leader of them all – a man who has just embarked on yet another career, this one as a writer of great fiction?

And how can there be a top ten of world leaders with Bono – unless of course there’s a minimum height requirement.