The DepARTment of Finance

fontanalis

More people in the Department of Finance with Arts degrees than Economics or Finance. Doesn't bode well for the future does it?
http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2010/jun/27/department-of-finance-run-by-arts-graduates/

sceptre

But almost in the same breath, staff admit they have "mixed feelings about the increased use of specialists" in finance.

Martin Frawley (article writer), next time someone says that, ask why. That's the second question everyone reading the article is asking...

(the first question is also "why/how" but that's to the first line of the article)


I'm sure you've all got views but I wanted to hear what the DoF staff said about why (*stamps foot petulantly*)

Hootanany

FFS this not on

wonderfulname

If you do economics in trinity you get a BA/MA

If you do economics through arts in UCD you also get a BA/MA

An arts degree doesn't necessarily mean a bad degree, especially these days where its a 4year degree in decent colleges.

I'd like to see the specifics before judging anything, this sounds like the tribunes trying to make a story where there is none to be honest.

dan_d

Read the numbers. 75 with economics degrees, 76 with art degrees.It's not exactly being "run by arts grads" now, is it? If there is a question to be asked it's why they is a nearly equal number of each, when there should be far more of those with a background in economics than whatever the arts degrees may be....but that headline is completely incorrect.

I would question where that information arose from aswell....did the author actually get his hands on the CV of each individual?? And has the experience of any of these people been looked at?

I absolutely welcome a review of the Dept of Finance, seeing as they have been up to their eyeballs in non-regulation and poor budgeting, but articles like this are simply incorrect and very misleading.

Jo King

Does that mean that only 151 staff in the DoF have degrees? There must be thousands of staff in that department.

Cookie_Monster

Are there no ACCA/CIMA/ACA qualified staff there at all?

What about audit qualified or tax qualified?

Thats pretty scary reading...

Nijmegen

Audit functions are outsourced to the C&AG, not that they do a great job. Tax would be the function of the Revenue Commissioners.

Departments are best at batting jobs away from themselves

Tipp Man

It was good to see Lenihan actually be proactive and get a review of the department done. It is much needed across the entire public sector, this is a start

Cookie_Monster

Nijmegen wrote: »

Audit functions are outsourced to the C&AG, not that they do a great job. Tax would be the function of the Revenue Commissioners.
Departments are best at batting jobs away from themselves

you still need people qualified to provide input into tax rates or internal audits etc

Jaysoose

Well this would explain why they are incapable doing the simplest of calculations.

Also explains the creative valuations of the properties contained within nama aswell.

Honestly does any of this news surprise anybody? I suppose we should be grateful the DOF has people with degrees in there as opposed to a load of wasters with the leaving cert and demanding pay rises while refusing to use the blue crayon as its not in their contracts and they are only allowed to colour in with the red one.

fontanalis

wonderfulname wrote: »

If you do economics in trinity you get a BA/MA

If you do economics through arts in UCD you also get a BA/MA

An arts degree doesn't necessarily mean a bad degree, especially these days where its a 4year degree in decent colleges.

I'd like to see the specifics before judging anything, this sounds like the tribunes trying to make a story where there is none to be honest.

Good point, bit of sloppy posting on my part.