What would Elon Musk make of our habit of overspending?
(Left to right) Donald Trump, singer Kid Rock and Tesla and Elon Musk at UFC 309 in Madison Square Garden in New York on Saturday. Musk plans to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. Photo: Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images
Out of the fog of bizarreness that was the recent American election, one of the many oddities to result was the appointment of the world’s richest man Elon Musk to lead the country’s new Department of Government Efficiency.
Leaving aside the obvious conflict of interest of tasking a billionaire who enjoys multiple state contracts with reforming Government spending, Musk’s plan to cut $2 trillion — almost a third of its total — from the federal budget seems a little unlikely.
Still, given Musk's apparent zeal for the project, there may be some uncomfortable times ahead for public servants in charge of the US purse-strings. Which begs the question, what would Elon make of the Irish State’s habit of wastage?
Ironically, it was the Office of Public Works’ decision to spend €336,000 on a 36-space bike shelter at Leinster House which brought the issue of waste front and centre for the public last summer.
Ironic because the OPW, the body in charge of the State’s property portfolio, has been spraying millions upon millions around willy-nilly for decades. The OPW is not alone in this, as the headlines surrounding the €2.2bn national children’s hospital can attest.
Then there is the issue of Metrolink — the long-discussed rail link between Dublin Airport and the city centre which has been on the cards for 25 years, at a cost of more than €150m, with not a single brick having been laid.
At present, the budgetary estimates for that project range from €7bn to a whopping €23bn, with a delivery date this side of 2040 seeming increasingly far-fetched.
It should come as no surprise that a potential budgeting variance of €16bn in a public project is not reflective of best practice.
But to focus on the OPW for a second, in recent years it has:
- Spent €36m in rent on the gardaí’s former Dublin command HQ at Harcourt Square while constructing a €96m replacement at Military Road, a couple of years after declining the opportunity to buy Harcourt Square outright for a fraction of that cost. The Military Road building's eventual capacity is 500 fewer than the number of gardaí it was required to house;
- Purchased Thornton Hall farm in north Dublin for €30m in 2005 with a view to building a prison, then spent an additional €20m on consolidating the property over the following two decades. The land has never been used;
- Committed to spending €10m more than necessary to rent the headquarters of the Department of Health in Dublin at Miesian Plaza after mismeasuring its internal floor area, while spending a further €16m to let the building while it remained empty for 18 months;
- Agreed to build a second children’s science museum for Dublin city centre at a minimum cost of €70m because it had made a legal commitment to do so more than two decades’ previously.
On a big picture level though, why is this country’s track record at spending public funds so poor?
“Basically, value for money is not made a specific objective in projects. The eventual cost has no consequences, and overruns are not regarded as emblematic of poor performance,” says Allen Morgan, former chief valuer with the OPW, and a passionate advocate for transparency in how public money is spent.
Can it be addressed?
“You have to ‘make money matter’ a critical success factor and hold people accountable at all levels within the public service,” he says. “Likewise, genuine expertise needs to be prioritised in the hiring of subject matter experts, rather than generalists.”
In Morgan’s own field of property management, he has been calling for the outsourcing of the State’s property function to a new, dedicated, and commercial semi-State body — staffed by experts and held accountable for its performance — for years.
An optimist, Morgan believes that the culture of see no evil, speak no evil in the Irish public service can be reformed, though he would rate the chances of genuine change being instigated internally as as “slim to zero”: “Culture eats strategy, and turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.”
“It will be challenging, as you’re changing a longstanding public service culture, but not impossible. But it means a new professionally-led dynamic agency solution, across the scope of infrastructure, with experts pushing a powerful change management mandate,” he says.
It also probably needs a figurehead, a champion. Though maybe not Elon Musk.
