'Grand plan' to merge VECs may end up costing money, not save it
by Paul Murphy Updated: Wednesday, 16th November, 2011 4:59pm
In our quaint old Irish way, we clamour for action over this or that controversial decision which "just has" to be made. The "something-must-be-done" brigade come out of the woodwork, voices raised, hot words exchanged in a barrage of verbal gunfire spraying all and sundry with a rhetorical flourish.
A wily politician in Drogheda - the late Peter Moore, eight times Mayor - would enter the fray with the best of them. Then step back, and with tongue well tucked into cheek, ask: "Yes, but who's going to bell the cat?" Indeed. Who is going to tell so-and-so that s/he has made a bad decision and it has to be reversed.
In the case of the cutting back (from 33 to 16) and mergers of the country's vocational education committees (VECs), who is going to bell the Ruairi Quinn cat? Specifically, who is going to tell him that a monumental cock-up is on its way in the merger of the Meath and Louth VECs?
Which departmental official will come forward and tip the minister the wink that moving the headquarters of Meath VEC to a certain premises in Drogheda is a bad idea? Will Sapper Civil Servant (he or she who lays, detects and disarms mines) go into the front line and tell Brigadier Quinn that his merger plan will look like the ruins of Ypres after the batteries have opened up.
This grand plan, cooked up under the previous administration, is meant to "save" €3 million. My goodness, Olli Rehn won't be half pleased with us. "Good boy, Irishman, go to the top of the class."
"Saving" or "cost-cutting" - choose your own words - is the new religion. As long as we are seen to be "saving" or "cutting", sure, we're great fellows and girls altogether.
This particular move to shift the Meath VEC HQ to Drogheda is not about inter-county rivalry. Neither is it about moving 25 administrative staff from Navan to Drogheda and the inconvenience or disruption that will inevitably be caused to individuals.
In any case, the public servants who have kept the administration of the Meath VEC going in an efficient manner for donkeys years have not kicked up a fuss.
This is also about the thousands of people who use the VEC's services on a daily basis and who may have to or want to attend its offices for business. Meath has 10 VEC schools with 5,500 pupils and there are 820 people on its payroll. That takes a lot of administering. And the administrative headquarters in Navan is in the frontline of all that action.
Up to 100 visitors a day come through its reception area for one kind of business or another. It runs 100 interview boards every year, with all the working out of details and timetables and organisation that this entails.
I know the proposed headquarters for the merged VECs in Drogheda. It is a 1930s building at King Street, a quaint but highly congested part of the town. Have a look at it on archiseek.com. It's an imposing building of its type, constructed of mass concrete and painted white on the outside. There's a certain nostalgic attachment to it on the part of Droghedeans.
Inside, it will be a nightmare to attempt any refurbishment into a modern administrative headquarters. Just try installing sophisticated IT systems into it. The Luftwaffe in its heyday wouldn't penetrate its walls.
Was this building inspected by Department of Education and Science officials before the announcement (which was leaked in advance) that the 'old tech' was to be the new HQ for the merged bodies? We doubt it. Did the Department commission architects, surveyors and construction experts to examine the building before the announcement? We doubt it, too.
Was the minister's decision made on the prompting of a local political interest in Drogheda and he went along with that? Probably.
Don't think we're the only ones with a gripe about this merger business which is beginning to get the smell of 'decentralisation' about it. Consider poor old Leitrim. It has little in the way of public bodies that it can hang its self-pride and confidence on (the county council and the VEC). But now it's just been told that the administrative HQ won't be in Leitrim any longer, but 100 miles away in Mayo.
I am suggesting that a realisation is beginning to dawn on some people in the Department of Education and Science that this merger might end up costing money rather than saving it.
Four Meath TDs met members of the VEC in recent days. It would be a good idea if they now started to ask some very hard questions about this move to Drogheda. And they should try to have themselves invited for a tour of the old tech. They'll soon know what I'm talking about.
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