Irish Red Cross: A bright new begining or more of the same???

Today, 31st January 2011, sees the first day at work for the new Irish Red Cross Secretary General, Mr. Donal Ford. This Blog wishes him every success for the challenging assignment ahead. The hopes and aspirations of hundreds of volunteers around the country and staff in Ireland and overseas rest on the shoulders of two men, Mr. Forde and Mr. David O’ Callaghan, the Irish Red Cross Chairman appointed in September 2010.

For nearly two decades Irish Red Cross staff and volunteers have seen the Irish Red Cross misgoverned and mismanaged with negative media coverage, calls for independent investigations and parliamentary questions in Dail Eireann (Irish parliament) a regular occurrence. Primary responsibility for virtually every Irish Red Cross internal crisis, and there have been many, rests with a highly dysfunctional governance. Since 2005 alone there have been four separate Secretary Generals. Since 2005 there have been five Heads of Fundraising. In addition there has been a huge turnover of staff across all other departments. Over the last twenty years there has been eight Secretary Generals all of whom left in highly controversial and often extremely acrimonious circumstances. All this points to an organisation suffering from a deep malaise. Central to this malaise are two or three members of the Executive Committee and Central Council and an overall weak and disempowered Central Council which has refused to sanction or remove these individuals. Until this governance issue is addressed once and for all the malaise will continue unabated regardless of who is Secretary General or Chairperson. The power base of this handful of individuals needs to be immediately dismantled. These individuals, who have served on Executive Committee for between 12 and 20 years, in outright breach of good governance practice, need to be told to step down. Should this not happen the fate that awaits Mr. Ford will be the same as that of his eight predecessors.

Any new Secretary General to the Irish Red Cross is at his or her strongest in their first few weeks and months. It is therefore crucial that they use this time and strength to make sweeping and fundamental change. It is during this time that every effort must be made to ensure the removal of the Vice Chairman and have him held accountable for his actions over the Tipperary Tsunami Bank account. The Irish Red Cross will never fire a secretary general in the first few months after his/her appointment and it is this fact that gives the secretary general their power. The further a secretary general gets into their time in office the less concerned the ruling elite on the board fear the negative publicity of firing another secretary general. As such the power of the secretary general begins to diminish quickly after the first eight or nine months as the ruling elite begin once again to interfere and control the day to day running of the organisation. This deterioration in relations usually coincides with the ‘latest’ governance reform proposals advocated by the new secretary general which invariably threaten the ruling elite. The ruling elite will resist and thwart the secretary general at every step of the way and two things generally happen. The secretary general gets so frustrated and despondent that they resign and depart or alternatively the secretary general shows courage and continues to push reform. If this happens relations with the ruling elite on the board will plummet and over some pretence created by the board the secretary general will be fired. Any independent examination of the last twenty years will prove this correct.

Mr. Ford needs to be aware that there is a current set of Irish Red Cross governance reform proposals before the government. The Vice Chairman was on the committee that devised these so called reform proposals. Mr. Ford, if he seeks advice from the right quarters, will be informed that these proposals are designed with one objective in mind and that is the retention of the status quo. Should the proposals be voted into place by the Central Council at its next meeting in February/March they will consign the Irish Red Cross to another decade of turmoil as the same individuals responsible for the last twenty years of turmoil will remain in positions of influence, power and authority. In fact if these proposals are not scrapped there is every real chance the current Vice Chairman will be the new Chairman in 2012 when Mr. O’ Callaghan’s term expires, a mere seventeen months away. The consequences of this do not bear thinking about.

In order to ensure fundamental reform of the Irish Red Cross a number of things need to happen including:

· All Executive Committee members with ten years or more service should step down in May at the end of their current terms and must not present themselves for election to Central Council or Executive for a minimum of three years.
· The supposed governance reform proposals need to be revised substantially as previously outlined on this blog. In particular when members step down after two terms in office they must remain off all committees and the Executive for a minimum of three years and not one year as currently proposed.
· A new Vice Chairman needs to be appointed with immediate effect. The internal report into the Tipperary tsunami bank account clearly states that the Tipperary branch should have been closed down for repeated violations of Irish Red Cross financial and accounting policy. Had this happened, as it should have according to Irish Red Cross policy, Mr. Lawlor would not be the branch chairman. He would not therefore have been elected to the Area Committee and he would not have been elected by the Area Committee onto Central Council and from there to the Executive Committee. As such there is a real question over the legitimacy of Mr. Lawlor’s position as Vice Chairman. He is in this position only because the Irish Red Cross failed to implement its own policy and close the Tipperary branch. Mr. Lawlor’s position as Vice Chairman is therefore null and void. His appointment was only possible because the Irish Red Cross totally disregarded its own policies and procedures. His appointment is therefore invalid.
· There has been a long term plan to create a new volunteer position of National Director of Units. For some inexplicable reason (although we all really know the reason) it is proposed that the office holder of this post would sit on the Executive Committee. It has long been assumed that the current Vice Chairman would take this position once it is created. Should this role go ahead and be confirmed by Central Council the recruitment should be handled by the new Secretary General and the Chairman. It should be an open competition. Most importantly the National Director of Units should NOT sit on Executive. There is no legitimate reason for the post holder to sit on Executive. The current proposals, designed to ensure a certain individual remains on Executive in the event of his removal from his current position, is shameless enough to make that other master of retaining power, Valdamir Putin, blush.

It can only be hoped that Mr. Ford uses his first few months in office to bring in sweeping changes at the level of governance. He will need the full support and endorsement of the Chairman, David O’ Callaghan, as he implements this difficult and dangerous task. All other reform and restructuring is of secondary importance. Should Mr. Forde not succeed in fundamental governance reform and oversee the removal of certain individuals the Irish Red Cross will lose another secretary general within 2 to 3 years, either through despair or termination. Someone once said “If one is to be successful it is imperative that he works towards removing all the hurdles and obstacles coming in his way”. Mr. Ford has a great opportunity to transform the Irish Red Cross and make it one of Ireland’s leading and most respected not-for-profit organisations. Remove THE obstacle and success will be his. Failure to do so and history will repeat itself for the ninth time.

Dictatorial individuals are no more inevitable in private and not-for-profit businesses than dictators are in national governments. They will arise and prosper, nevertheless, if true believers of democracy-citizens devoted to democratic ideals-do not constantly oppose them-Charles Edison