EU Rejects Irish Nominee For Auditor Job

Ireland's top finance official has been rejected by a European Parliament committee after the government put his name forward for a senior EU auditor's job.

It's only the third time in history that a nomination to the European Court of Auditors has been rejected and it's the first time that an Irish appointee has failed to secure the support of MEPs.

In a highly embarrassing development for Taoiseach Enda Kenny's government, the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control voted down the nomination of Kevin Cardiff by one vote.

Cardiff is the Secretary General at the Department of Finance and has been at the heart of some of the major financial decisions made in Ireland over the past few years.

And in a stunning revelation it emerged that the current Irish holder of the position had sent emails to at least two members of the committee questioning Cardiff's suitability for the job.

Eoin O'Shea, who was appointed by Fianna Fail to the position, wrote to MEPs in what he now describes as a "moment of madness" to point out that Cardiff was "an Irish civil servant who was responsible for financial supervision during the period of collapse of the Irish banks."

His intervention could have cast doubt in the minds of some members of the budget committee.

Mr O'Shea had publicly supported Cardiff's nomination at the same time as he was privately disparaging him.

Traditionally, the office has been a political appointment.

The last government appointed former minister Marie Geoghegan Quinn to the position, but when she left the post for private reasons before the end of her term, the last government appointed Mr O'Shea as an interim replacement.

It's thought O'Shea wanted to continue on in the job himself.

Mr O'Shea has since apologized for his lobbying against Mr Cardiff's selection.

Despite the rejection by the Budgetary Control committee, Cardiff does stand an outside chance of getting the job.

The nomination goes before a vote of the wider European Parliament next month.

While the parliament has never before overturned the opinion of the committee, there is an outside chance that because of Mr O'Shea's intervention, politicians in Brussels could appoint him.

In Dublin, the government is holding firm in its support of Cardiff's nomination.

The selection of the Department of Finance's top man for the position was controversial from the start, given his central role in the banking crisis and the response to it.

But his departure for the $300,000-plus job in the European Court of Auditors was seen by the new government as a way of making space for new blood in the Department of Finance.

The government has already publicly advertised for his replacement.

Appearing before the committee in Brussels last week, Cardiff defended his role in relation to the bank guarantee and said he had been working a high pressure environment in Dublin's Department of Finance over the past number of years.

"Certainly I can say the people who have had the opportunity to assess me have generally assessed me positively," he said.

"That's not to say I haven't made enormous mistakes. In the middle of a crisis you make very big mistakes and you make very big gains sometimes."

He was also questioned about the "accounting error" which led to Ireland's national debt being overestimated by €3.7bn which happened on his watch.

A number of Irish MEPs were opposed to his appointment because of the mistake and his central role in the banking crisis.

But both Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore have said they believe Cardiff is the right man for the job, and better qualified than many of his predecessors.