The decline of FG?

Now that is the refuge of the most unscrupulous. Throw out a facetious accusation that you picked up on the internet, with a disclaimer that it was unconfirmed.

You also said - with no qualifications whatsoever:

By signing off on it he has facilitated whatever incompetence was involved. The CS need ministerial sign off to get away with something like this. He could have, with the stroke of a pen, stopped the extravagance/incompetence/corruption or whatever it was inflated the cost. 

Plenty of accusations there - and catching yourself in your own lies to boot.

You made the assertion that:

The CS need ministerial sign off to get away with something like this.

But instead of being capable of even a tiny degree of honesty it's back to throwing personal jibes. Typical.

That was not what I was accused of by blanch.

No problem admitting that was a part that was wrong in fact. I'd qualify it by saying the CS need the line minister asleep at the wheel to get away with an overspend like that. Another minister Jack Chambers claimed yesterday he personally was resisting spending submissions so clearly there is no block on a minister controlling his departments spending.

I 'know' another Minister has taken control of his dept's spending. There seems to be no control in another as the bike shed and other cases in that dept show.

Tbh here you may get ready for others asking these questions Pureza because asked they will be. Tip of an iceberg like RTE vibes of the whole thing. 'but SF' will not be an acceptable answer either.

Ministers have controlled 'project' budgets. Here is one instance.

Midwest Radio - Calls being made to the Transport Minister to allow vital road projects to go ahead

Seems to me what level a Minister wants to get involved is an á la carte decision.

Questions will be asked of the relevant line minister here. With several high profile cases exposed in his dept what did he do in terms of oversight and control? There will be questions for the CS too, no doubt.

Telling those asking questions they are 'talking out of their backsides' will not be an acceptable answer either. I sense ducks are being gotten in a row already.

No, I am saying that your contention that a Minister can't control budgets is bogus, it seems a Minister is able to control budgets if he/she wants to. By the way, to counter the shrill 'you can't expect a Minister to be on top of every penny spent in his/her department' rants. I am not expecting that and never said he/she should. They have staff though and the power to delegate.

Anyway the Minister has now come out now publicly and said he was not even aware of the project. So we have that. We'll see where it goes from here.

Not confusing a thing.
Ministers patently can get involved with spending on projects if they deem it important.

Not just me 'chasing' the minister either for answers here. Sorry to disappoint you.

In fairness for a young fella he has learned the 'I know nothing' routine well.

Ivana Bacik, Eamon Ryan and the Ceann Comhairle knew about it IB and the CC having a media reported spat about it. His replacement K. O'Donnell (Minister For Housing at the time)knew about it and organised planning for it (all reported in the media) and two Dáil committees also discussed the building of it, also reported in the media.

It was also built in his workplace and he never heard of it until this week?

This is why FG are in decline IMO, people can see through the flannel now. They had a chance, a golden one after 2008 but Enda's flannel about New Politics blew it.

The Minister you say has norhing to answer for is ‘explaining’ and he’ll be ‘explaining’ some more too. Ditto the CS.

I told you that I had shown him the expenditure approval limits for the Civil Service and that as a result the Minister wouldn't have signed off on the project - which was his first and main claim, a claim which has been shown to be disingenuous and malicious. He has repeatedly ignored that information and continued to discuss and debate in bad faith. You can only take it so far, show the absurdity of his arguments, and then just leave it there.

SF now pointing out that they will build houses for 250k while FFG builds bike sheds for 335k. Funny analogy I think we can all agree

This is a good example of somebody falling for false information

They are saying they will build 75,000 for social rental, 25,000 for affordable purchase and 25,000 for affordable rental at a cost of €39bn which when you divide the two figures equates to an average of 312,000 for each of the above mentioned 125,000 homes.

The social and affordable rental will be a nice continuous earner for the state while it's not clear if the €6.25bn+ made form the sale of 25,000 houses for 250k+ each is included in the €39bn figure or not it's prudent to assume that it is

In total, including the private builders building 175k homes over 5 years, it equates to 60k homes a year

I hope this clears it up for you

One of the features of the 'arrogance of power' is increasing displeasure and outrage if anyone scrutinises what you are doing. This releases Minister/members and supporters of those in power onto media and social media to arrogantly try to cast shade on anyone who scrutinises or questions them or offers alternatives to what they are doing.
You can see it clearly in this debacle over the bike shed and when somebody offers a different way of doing things, like housing.

The word 'schadenfreude' has been mentioned a lot here, but the way the bike shed and the new housing policy have combined to see the government's own schadenfreude come to bite them in the ass would be hilarious if it wasn't such a serious abuse of power and the taxpayer . More to come I would say.

QED.
Cast shade, point over there, rage at messengers and whistleblowers, demean, deride and undermine but never ever offer solutions that might undermine/criticise what is currently going on and those involved.

Stick religiously to the 'I know nothing' excuses, circle the wagons again and carry on. Increasingly the FG/FF/Green way.

why are you constantly deflecting, it’s a pretty simple question, perhaps you could read my posts again.

Your post…. SF now pointing out that they will build houses for 250k while FFG builds bike sheds for 335k. Funny analogy I think we can all agree.

I ask you do you believe Sinn Fein can build a house for 250k, are the not talking about the heavily subsidised price they will sell them for. You accuse of misinformation and do not answer the question.

I ask you again do you believe that Sinn Fein can build a houses for 250k and you again deflect and make a condescending post about not reading your post.

I’m just asking if you believe this build price?

Quite possibly this is the most inherently ironic post on this site.

Castigates OPW for overspending on a bike shed, while in the same sentence, supports the idea of OPW on speed being able to build houses cheaper than the private sector!!!

Trump would be proud of that.

I agree with a lot you are saying about PS/CS accountability in general. But if I was to rank the parties on likelihood of tackling the unions, similar to Labour and PBP I would have SF pretty low on that list. I wouldn't trust FF either given how soft on the unions they were in the past. To me FG would be the most likely party to tackle the issue.

It's impossible to ask a minister to be across all of the opw projects,how could they even understand the minutae anyway?

It's an utterly ridiculous suggestion,completely unworkable,out of curiosity though,has the pac any teeth in dealing with civil servants that go wild with projects/budgets? Or is all we ever get just recommendations and reports?

This is where the heart of the issue is:

Private companies have to be effecient or they go bust

The CS can leave their office at 5 or earlier and go play racquet ball and go back in and stamp 20 invoices as paid next morning

All those extra staff cost money, there is an inherent problem with public service efficiency, that, to be fair, is a worldwide phenonemon, yet you persist in supporting a policy that says the public service can build houses more cheaply and more efficiently than the private sector.

Amazing irony.

This is a just another post implying the solution is to accept it and 'carry on'. I suspect it is because the lack of any attempts to curb waste and possible corruption will reflect badly on those who have had power here since Independence.

P.S. I mentioned SIPO not because it has any oversight of the CS but because it has been hobbled in the same way. The same 'I know nothing' excuses help evade responsibility across all institutions of the State.

what joke tweet?. I was referring to your colleagues post here on boards

what joke tweet?

my first responses to the poster sought clarification on the build vs sell (get in Sinn Fein speak) from 250,000. They could have cleared it up by making that clear. Assuming they were referring to this joke tweet.

do you believe Sinn Fein would be able to deliver the number of homes in the time frame and cost outlined in their manifesto.

your comrade in arms introduced this particular Sinn Fein propaganda and you went on to defend it. But rich pointing me at the now closed Sinn Fein threads don’t you think?

thanks for the condescending lesson on how a discussion forum works. Regarding the joke tweet, you posted a tweet today, however the post I commented on was not a tweet and said build not get.