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Updated 12.30pm
JUSTICE MINISTER FRANCES Fitzgerald has said she does not know where her former secretary general Brian Purcell will be reassigned to in the civil service.
She was speaking in the wake of Purcell’s decision to seek reassignement from the Department of the Justice following a damning report by an independent review group which found the department had a “closed, secretive and silo driven culture”.
“I can’t answer the details of where Brian is going to be reassigned,” Fitzgerald told Pat Kenny on Newstalk this morning.
Fitzgerald did confirm yesterday that Purcell will not be reassigned within the Department of Justice. She said this morning that staff in her department were sad about Purcell’s departure.
Speaking at Leinster House this afternoon, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said that Purcell’s reassignment “looks more like a sideways move”.
“I can’t think of very many positions where one can simply request, on the back of such a devastatingly incisive report, that one can simply request to be moved to somewhere else,” he said.
Adams again called on the Taoiseach to explain the events surrounding the departure of former garda commissioner Martin Callinan in March after he was visited by Purcell the night before he retired.
Earlier the Sinn Féin justice spokesperson said that the government must examine whether or not it can sack civil servants.
Pádraig MacLochlainn was speaking today on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme in light of the reassignment of Purcell.
The career civil servant offered to be reassigned in light of the report, but there has been some suggestion that he will keep his €200,000 a year salary, something that MacLochlainn said he has a problem with.
“Not only do I have a problem with it, the vast majority of the public will have a problem with it,” he said.
“There is a fear that the public sector doesn’t take responsibility for its actions and the government will have to look at this; can you sack somebody?
“If you look at Brian Purcell’s performance in front of the Oireachtas Justice Committee, it was farcical. He couldn’t answer basic questions about an event that has led to a commission of inquiry.”
Fitzgerald said this morning that Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Brendan Howlin has been implementing civil service reform.
She also pointed to comments by the top civil servant in Howlin’s department, Robert Watt, who said last week that it should be easier to sack non-performing public sector workers.
MacLochlainn said earlier that while he accepted that many of the problems at the department had pre-dated Purcell, but insisted that did not absolve him of blame.
Purcell was previously criticised in the Guerin Report over his handling of Garda matters including the situation surrounding garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe.
- additional reporting from Hugh O’Connell
First published 8.05am
So a no-deal Brexit would be bad for the economy but so would an orderly Brexit. And does anyone really believe that inflation is only 1 percent per annum in this country? I assume the Central Bank guy is not renting accommodation or paying crèche fees.
@Earth Traveller: yes…inflation is low. Are any of your day to day products in a basket of goods going up?
@Earth Traveller: yes…inflation is low. Are any of your day to day products in a basket of goods going up? Competition is driving retail prices down. The majority of people own their homes and interest rates are dropping…
@joe: yes they absolutely are
More tax from FFG …
Our central banks “expert” analysis seems to be to look at the current number and then add a little bit onto that!
And aren’t we all so lucky that FFG never brought us to the brink of recession!
Its always somebody else’s fault, brexit, or the financial crash, or the butterfly that flapped its wings the wrong way in brazil, its never the fault of the useless idiots in dail eireann.
We need to stand up stop thinking about how bad it will be without England financially and start thinking about Irish unity and how it will benefit us as a nation of course if won’t benefit us straight away but a few years down the line it will. Those figures the central bank send out I would take them with a grain of salt .Time to stop moaning and get on with it.
@Donal Carey: what if the vote goes the other way ,what then and it is likely to do that as the uncertainty that is around the corner
@Donal Carey: we really don’t want or need that money pit!
@FlopFlipU: Negative everything points to a United Ire and it’s about time
Once northern Ireland see how britain has betrayed them, it will a work itself out.
What will they use to scare us with when its all sorted.
Is this the same regulator that predicted a soft landing at the height of the Celtic tiger?
The banks will be a great help to struggling people. They give you an umbrella when the sun is out, then take it off you when it’s raining
Scare mungering again like 12 years ago
@Joseph Molloy:
You may have missed it, but 12 years ago the proverbial muck hit the fan in this country like never before and we’re still suffering the consequences. Where exactly do you see the scaremongering?
Brexit won’t happen. English are stupid alright but not economically suicidal. London is the powerhouse and voted remain. Money talks.
have your say