Belfast Newsletter 12th December 2008

QUESTIONS about how a Department of Regional Development (DRD) civil servant sent a whistleblower's complaint about ferry safety to his boss are to be raised

in the House of Lords.

Ulster Unionist peer Lord Laird last night said that he would be raising questions with the Government in the Lords about the implications for maritime

safety if whistleblowers felt afraid to report concerns because they may be identified to their em ployer.

The questions stem from a six-month independent investigation into concerns surrounding the £4 million DRD-subsidised Rathlin ferry contract.

On Wednesday the investigators published their report, stating that the DRD was right to award the contract to Cork businessman Ciaran O'Driscoll in April

and rejecting a catalogue of allegations against the department.

However it described the decision by a DRD official to forward the complaint of a whistleblower, who was the ferry's engineer until being made redundant

more than a month ago, to Mr O'Driscoll, his employer.

The whistleblower, Jonathan Barnes, has waived his right to anonymity to speak out about the department's handling of his complaint, describing it as "appalling"

and "irresponsible".

DUP Assemblyman Jim Wells, a member of the Regional Development Committee which in private session quizzed DRD Permanent Secretary Paul Priestly about the

investigation on Wednesday, said that the decision to forward Mr Barnes' details to his boss was "clearly a mistake".

"That shouldn't have happened because why would people blow the whistle if that information was to be released?" he said.

"This was very simple – this was the same boat being taken over, with the same crew doing the same route," he said.

"It was a very simple re-evaluation and tender process and they got it (the method) wrong – although in the end they awarded the contract to the right person

– and we wouldn't have known that had the whistleblower not come forward, although his allegations were not the ones that the department was found guilty

of."

Mr Wells, who as a keen birdwatcher frequently travels to Rathlin Island on the ferry, said that there were serious lessons for the department to learn

from its mistakes on the ferry tendering process.

"If this was for some major project – new trains or a fleet of buses for example – and the same mistakes were made, then the department would be in a very

difficult position."

(The full article contains 397 words and appears in News Letter newspaper.)

(For those of our readers who were puzzled when reading “Error Of Judgment In Ferry Whistle Blower Case”, in Island News on “emara News” I hope this item makes what it was referring to a little clearer.

What isn’t said here is that the Engineer on the Rathlin service was sacked by his employer.   He was in fact told that he was “redundant” but since his responsibilities must still be carried out in relation to marine regulations for the operation of that service he was in any normal use of the language dismissed.   His job had not ceased to exist.

There seems both north and south to have been a great deal of mystification and turning of “blind eyes” by the D.R.D and the D.C.R.G.A. in relation to the ferry operations of this particular “Cork businessman”.   I am sure Lord Nelson, who coined the action if not the phrase, by putting a telescope to his eye which had been blinded in battle, so as not to see a signal from a superior, would be glad to know that his tradition was being carried on.   There is one major difference of course and that lies in the motivation for such behaviour.   I cannot be sure of the motivation in the case of either department of either government, though I hope and believe that with sufficient persistence it may one day be revealed, but it is pretty clear that in neither case was it the same as that British naval officer.   In his case He wished to commit his vessel to an act of daring and bravery for patriotic reasons with no thought of personal profit, face saving or petty political advantage, and although the bold Horatio Nelson did risk the lives of his sailors, it was in a time of war and no civilians lives were put at risk.

We understand that one of the major reasons that the D.R.D. was thought to have been considered to have behaved reasonably in awarding the contract to the present operator is that it took up “references”, as it were, from the D.C.R.G.a., which expressed the opinion that the operator was on “par” with the other operators to the other islands of the Republic.   This was taken as an endorsement of the operator.

If the D.C.R.G.A. genuinely believed this, which I can only presume it did, having applied penalties for breaches of contract on three occasions, seen crew numbers reduced, maintenance standards fall, several deadlines be missed for the introduction of a new standby boat and been receiving numerous complaints from Cape Clear residents – even if it does seem to be of the opinion that islanders are a class of person peculiarly given to unjustified carping and with little knowledge of the sea the weather and boats, and which can never be satisfied – does it feel that its opinion is still justified?   If it does, presumably the other operators around the coast are quite a bunch of cheese-paring chancers who care little for their customers from the islands, or they will be feeling very insulted by the standard they are being told they are equal to.   Personally I’ve seen little evidence of low standards elsewhere, but then I probably wouldn’t be able to make a reasonable judgment having my mind influenced by 29 years of living on an atlantic island!

Ed – Editor)