"Dr" John O'Conor - pianist uses tax payers money for his own parties!

jdivision

And so it continues

Check out the new C&AG report on the Royal Irish Academy of Music

The audit found that, as of September 2008, the Director’s annual remuneration package was around €225,000. This was based mainly on two separate employment contracts with the Academy, with some additional payments under the terms of separate agreements for extra services.
...
The Director’s contract of employment specifies that the post is a part-time one, whereby he is contracted to work for at least 1,080 hours a year, generally during the periods when the Academy is open. It also specifies that he is required to attend at the Academy for ‘34 full weeks per academic year’ and provides for an annual leave entitlement of 10 weeks
....
Once a year, the Academy presents a two-day seminar for piano teachers at its Dublin premises, delivered by the Director. Delivery of the seminar was not a requirement specified under either of the Director’s contracts.
In 2008, participants in the seminar paid a charge of €220 each. This included an attendance fee of €145 per head and €75 for the handbook. The total income from the seminar, including some sales of the handbook to non-attendees, was €39,775. Following the seminar, the Director was paid €10,110 on foot of the fee sharing agreement and €11,588 in respect of handbook sales....
Following audit enquiries, the Management and Finance Committee reviewed the Director’s expenses arrangements in April 2009. Following its review, the Committee decided that
��
the Director’s annual expense budget would be capped at €12,500
��
expenses claimed were to be vouched
��
the expenses claim form was to be revised
��
any proposed expense exceeding €1,000 would require prior approval from the Committee
��
home entertainment was not an appropriate expense item.:mad:

http://www.audgen.gov.ie/documents/vfmreports/74_Education_Sector_Report.pdf

orourkeda

more toffs at the trough more like

Dudess

Priorities please! Far more enraging that this organisation has "Royal Irish" in its name - west Brit bastards, whoever they are! :mad:

Morlar

1/4 million euro salaries for all. Sure why would ye be wanting to have expenses vouched for anyway.

Son Of A Vidic

It's just endemic in the Banana Republic isn't it? The Royal Irish Academy of Music - what's with the 'Royal' bit? Royal what? We haven't been ruled by a monarchy in quite a long time - pompous saps

bnt

Dudess wrote: »

Priorities please! Far more enraging that this organisation has "Royal Irish" in its name - west Brit bastards, whoever they are! :mad:

Would you rather not have an Irish Academy of Music, then? The only reason you have it is because the Brits built it. Ditto for the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital. Then there are the institutions without "Royal" in their names, such as the "College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin", a.k.a. Trinity College Dublin.

Changing the names of things, just because you don't like the origins of those names, is the kind of thing you see in Banana Republics. Rhodesia was named after a Brit (C.J. Rhodes), so they changed it to Zimbabwe. The biggest airport in South Africa, near Johannesburg, was originally named Jan Smuts International, after the former Prime Minister who founded the Royal Air Force during WW1 - but now it's called OR Tambo International, after a former ANC leader. I know that folks here don't like to be reminded of who built this country's institutions, but it's the truth. It's either that or we start looking for a new name for Dublin's Georgian Architecture.

Latchy

Not forgetting the dear old Royal canal ....

Morlar

Why not just call it 'Irish Academy of Music' ?

Millicent

bnt wrote: »

Would you rather not have an Irish Academy of Music, then? The only reason you have it is because the Brits built it. Ditto for the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital. Then there are the institutions without "Royal" in their names, such as the "College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin", a.k.a. Trinity College Dublin.

Changing the names of things, just because you don't like the origins of those names, is the kind of thing you see in Banana Republics. Rhodesia was named after a Brit (C.J. Rhodes), so they changed it to Zimbabwe. The biggest airport in South Africa, near Johannesburg, was originally named Jan Smuts International, after the former Prime Minister who founded the Royal Air Force during WW1 - but now it's called OR Tambo International, after a former ANC leader. I know that folks here don't like to be reminded of who built this country's institutions, but it's the truth. It's either that or we start looking for a new name for Dublin's Georgian Architecture.

I'm guessing Dudess was being sarcastic... :pac:

Millicent

Morlar wrote: »

Why not just call it 'Irish Academy of Music' ?

Because it's been in existence since before we were a republic.

Tabnabs

Royal Irish Yacht Club, Royal St. George Yacht Club, Royal Alfred Yacht Club, Royal Cork Yacht Club, plenty of them around.

Morlar

Millicent wrote: »

Because it's been in existence since before we were a republic.

You have answered the question of why is it currently called royal , but that isn't what I asked. I asked why not call it the 'Irish Academy of Music' ?

Royal Irish Yacht Club, Royal St. George Yacht Club, Royal Alfred Yacht Club, Royal Cork Yacht Club, plenty of them around.

Yep I know there are royal yacht clubs - how many of them are state funded ?

markpb

Morlar wrote: »

You have answered the question of why is it currently called royal , but that isn't what I asked. I asked why not call it the 'Irish Academy of Music' ?

Because it already has a name. Why bother changing it just because you got your knickers in a twist?

Morlar

markpb wrote: »

Because it already has a name. Why bother changing it just because you got your knickers in a twist?

But I don't have anything in a twist I am asking a simple question, here it is again in case you missed it :

Why not just call it 'Irish Academy of Music' ?

markpb

Morlar wrote: »

But I don't have anything in a twist I am asking a simple question, here it is again in case you missed it :

Why not just call it 'Irish Academy of Music' ?

It's been the RIAM since 1871 - can you give a valid reason for changing it? Things were different in Ireland in the 1800s, being granted a Royal title was a big deal, especially in Dublin.

Edit: I just realised we could be talking about different things. Do you mean why don't they change it IAM now or why didn't they call it IAM when it was founded?

Morlar

markpb wrote: »

It's been the RIAM since 1871 - can you give a valid reason for changing it? Things were different in Ireland in the 1800s, being granted a Royal title was a big deal, especially in Dublin.

I am not particularly pushed either way to be perfectly honest. Again I would say you are answering the question of why it is currently Called royal instead of the question of why not now Call it.

Some people do seem to be getting a bit overly defensive about this & it seems a fair question to me considering it has royal in it's title, we are a republic and it's state funded.

kincsem

Early Retirement Scheme in FETAC

To facilitate the amalgamation of three bodies – NQAI, HETAC and FETAC into a single entity, certain pension arrangements were entered into. The actuarial value of additional superannuation benefits granted to four FETAC staff who took early retirement was of the order of €800,000. The additional benefits did not have the required approvals from the Council of FETAC or the Minister and did not conform to the statutory authority governing them.

Did four people retire and pay themselves an average €200,000 each into their pension funds because they are worth it?

Morlar

kincsem wrote: »

Early Retirement Scheme in FETAC

To facilitate the amalgamation of three bodies – NQAI, HETAC and FETAC into a single entity, certain pension arrangements were entered into. The actuarial value of additional superannuation benefits granted to four FETAC staff who took early retirement was of the order of €800,000. The additional benefits did not have the required approvals from the Council of FETAC or the Minister and did not conform to the statutory authority governing them.

Did four people retire and pay themselves an average €200,000 each into their pension funds because they are worth it?

Ahem.

The actuarial value of additional superannuation benefits granted to four FETAC staff who took early retirement was of the order of €800,000.

Lexicon

Anyhoo - you're getting away from the original topic which is why the Director is being paid so much. I've no idea - however I do know that they are the biggest shower of snooty b.....ds in there and seems to almost entirely exist to teach kids in the uniform of Loreto on the green. It's an incredibly elitist set-up and I think it's disgraceful that the state funds something which is so completely out of the reach of lower income families.

Dudess

bnt wrote: »

Would you rather not have an Irish Academy of Music, then? The only reason you have it is because the Brits built it. Ditto for the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital. Then there are the institutions without "Royal" in their names, such as the "College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin", a.k.a. Trinity College Dublin.

Changing the names of things, just because you don't like the origins of those names, is the kind of thing you see in Banana Republics. Rhodesia was named after a Brit (C.J. Rhodes), so they changed it to Zimbabwe. The biggest airport in South Africa, near Johannesburg, was originally named Jan Smuts International, after the former Prime Minister who founded the Royal Air Force during WW1 - but now it's called OR Tambo International, after a former ANC leader. I know that folks here don't like to be reminded of who built this country's institutions, but it's the truth. It's either that or we start looking for a new name for Dublin's Georgian Architecture.

:pac:

Zebra3

Latchy wrote: »

Not forgetting the dear old Royal canal ....

Really needs to be renamed.

Seen as how it runs through Drumcondra, maybe we could rename it after that great Irish patriot Bertie "Expenses, Speeches & Pensions" Ahern.

leonie12

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/education-chiefs-did-not-approve-expenses-paid-to-leading-pianist-2447954.html

No wonder this country is in the toilet. :mad:

Poly

"€21,698 for a two-day piano workshop for teachers." WTF!!!!

leonie12

Lexicon wrote: »

Anyhoo - you're getting away from the original topic which is why the Director is being paid so much. I've no idea - however I do know that they are the biggest shower of snooty b.....ds in there and seems to almost entirely exist to teach kids in the uniform of Loreto on the green. It's an incredibly elitist set-up and I think it's disgraceful that the state funds something which is so completely out of the reach of lower income families.

As someone who was a student there, and later employed by them, I knew first hand the kind of stuff "Dr" O'Conor was up to. I quit the RIAM because it was obvious he was taking all the money the "RIAM" was making from sales of exam books, exams, student fees etc and using it for whatever he wanted. What is worse is that he's claiming for his personal expenses from tax payers money - even I didn't think he could be that stupid.

But then again, over inflated ego (for playing the same pieces year in and year out that ANY talented kid who practises for 15-20 years of their life can do) = arrogance = stupidity! He thought he was too important and famous to get caught. Sad old man!

I'm just relieved he ain't getting a cent of my taxes and I do hope he gets what is coming his way! No wonder he "resigned" or was it retired. Cowardly custard.

Yeah, the RIAM is a dreadful place - very insular and really wretched when it comes to destroying the morale of young people. I've taught at another music college since, and also privately, and I have never felt more relieved to be out of that dump.

Shame on you, Dr O'Conor (didn't he give himself the Dr...like that Gillian McKeith woman?!)

Clinker

leonie12 wrote: »

Shame on you, Dr O'Conor (didn't he give himself the Dr...like that Gillian McKeith woman?!)

He holds honorary doctorates from Trinity and NUI, so they're a bit like the money: he really has them, but he didn't have to work for them!

gigino

heard the b.....d on the radio trying to justify spending thousands of euro of taxpayers money on one dinner for himself and his mates ....he was saying that when you had important people to wine + dine you do not bring them to mcDonalds etc.
Sorry sunshine, come back down to earth.

cut his salary by 60%...or better still fire him if he does nothing productive... and no more taxpayers money for dinners + parties ( like the one before xmas he said he had 120 at...the taxpayer picked up the bill....he said you need quite a bit to money to entertain that amount of people...

Dionysus

Morlar wrote: »

Why not just call it 'Irish Academy of Music' ?

Millicent wrote: »

Because it's been in existence since before we were a republic.

Well, technically, it was founded as The Irish Academy of Music in 1848; in return for royal funding/patronage, it was renamed the Royal Irish Academy of Music in December 1872:

Whitehall,
3 December
I872.

My Lord Duke,
I have had the honour to lay before the Queen the petition signed by your Grace and the Honorary Secretaries, in behalf of the Irish Academy of Music, and I have to inform your Grace that her Majesty has been graciously pleased to accede to the prayer of the petition, and to command that the Society shall be styled the "Royal Irish Academy of Music ", and that the name of her Majesty may be used as the Patron of the Society.
I have the honour to be, my Lord Duke,
Your Grace's obedient servant,
H. A. Bruce.
His Grace the Duke of Leinster.

Source: Michael Quane, 'The Royal Irish Academy of Music', Dublin Historical Record, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Mar., 1965), p. 50. (JSTOR access here)

---

Similarly with what's known today as the 'Royal Irish Academy' - it was in existence before it was given a royal charter (in 1786) and became the Royal Irish Academy. It was originally founded as The Irish Academy. Here's a list of 'The Original Members of The Irish Academy' (bottom of p. 96). Prior to being founded as The Irish Academy, it was know as the Society of Antiquarians (See p. 330, Letter from Charles Vallancey to Charles O Connor, 14 May 1772), and was associated with the Dublin Society (see below).

Likewise with the RDS, which was founded, in June 1731, as the 'Dublin Society for improving Husbandry, Manufactures and other Useful Arts', generally shortened to the 'Dublin Society'. It was only renamed the Royal Dublin Society in 1820. Most organisations in Ireland which have 'royal' in their names today had different names when they were founded.

In other words, the culture of these Irish institutions was hijacked by a royalist cult which granted them funding in exchange for putting 'royal' in their title. All three of these organisations had histories which predate the addition or the prefix 'royal' to their names. Given this reality, it's quite reasonable to expect that they remove the 'royal' prefix and revert to their original names, particularly given that it's a democratic republican state which is now funding them.

Dionysus

bnt wrote: »

Would you rather not have an Irish Academy of Music, then? The only reason you have it is because the Brits built it. Ditto for the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) ...

This is so fundamentally historically ignorant it beggars belief. See above for the original names of both of these organisations before the prefix 'royal' was added. Furthermore, chief among the founders of The Irish Academy in 1785 was one Charles O Conor of Belanagare, one of the most famous antiquarians of eighteenth-century Ireland, a man who traced his ancestry back to Ruairí Ó Conchubhair, the last High King of Ireland, and was recognised by his Irish title Ó Conchubhair Donn as a result. Moreover, as many studies of identity in eighteenth-century Ireland have now shown, the Irish-born Protestant people who founded this organisation viewed themselves as Irish, not British. It was their abiding interest in Irish history and a passionate desire to save historical artefacts and documents which motivated them. To be sure their Irish identity was not the same as the identity of the mass of the Irish peasantry, but to state "the Brits built it" is a woefully benighted, ahistorical, thing to claim.

Your underlying contention, namely that the Irish wouldn't have been intellectually or civically capable of forming a society which promoted the arts betrays a further layer of historical ignorance, this time of the Aosdána of the Gaelic world which had survived until the later seventeenth century when the secular Irish elite which had supported these musicians, poets and so forth collapsed.

bnt wrote: »

Changing the names of things, just because you don't like the origins of those names, is the kind of thing you see in Banana Republics.

So, can we take it that you've no problem with a 'banana monarchy'?

bnt wrote: »

I know that folks here don't like to be reminded of who built this country's institutions

Then there are the people who, for reasons best known to themselves, assume that everything in Ireland originates in Britain and rant and rave against the rest of us for our supposed 'ignorance' because we prefer to read history rather than engage in cultural cringe.

Killer Pigeon

<cue begrudging peasants>

ascanbe

Y'know what they call a quarter-pounder with cheese in Paris?
..They call it a Royale with cheese.

Xivilai

bnt wrote: »

Would you rather not have an Irish Academy of Music, then? The only reason you have it is because the Brits built it. Ditto for the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital. Then there are the institutions without "Royal" in their names, such as the "College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin", a.k.a. Trinity College Dublin.

Changing the names of things, just because you don't like the origins of those names, is the kind of thing you see in Banana Republics. Rhodesia was named after a Brit (C.J. Rhodes), so they changed it to Zimbabwe. The biggest airport in South Africa, near Johannesburg, was originally named Jan Smuts International, after the former Prime Minister who founded the Royal Air Force during WW1 - but now it's called OR Tambo International, after a former ANC leader. I know that folks here don't like to be reminded of who built this country's institutions, but it's the truth. It's either that or we start looking for a new name for Dublin's Georgian Architecture.

But 'twas us Paddies that probably physically built them!

Dionysus

Morlar wrote: »

Why not just call it 'Irish Academy of Music' ?

markpb wrote: »

It's been the RIAM since 1871

Having been, ironically for your argument, renamed from its original name, The Irish Academy of Music.

markpb wrote: »

can you give a valid reason for changing it?

How about precisely the same reason, funding, why the prefix 'royal' was added to its name? It was renamed the Royal Irish Academy of Music in 1872 in order to secure funding from the British state. It's now funded by the Irish state, which is a democratic republic; ergo its name should be changed back to reflect that reality.

expectationlost

they're named royal because these are types of institutions that that appeals too, including the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

bc dub

i once heard of a CEO, that was also an artist, and wasn't paid an annual salary by the company, but was instead paid for his "art" that was magically used in offices of his company under the tax free artist status our government created. shirley that's wrong, both morally and legally?

Gyalist

bnt wrote: »

Changing the names of things, just because you don't like the origins of those names, is the kind of thing you see in Banana Republics. Rhodesia was named after a Brit (C.J. Rhodes), so they changed it to Zimbabwe. The biggest airport in South Africa, near Johannesburg, was originally named Jan Smuts International, after the former Prime Minister who founded the Royal Air Force during WW1 - but now it's called OR Tambo International, after a former ANC leader. I know that folks here don't like to be reminded of who built this country's institutions, but it's the truth. It's either that or we start looking for a new name for Dublin's Georgian Architecture.

I guess that by your logic; Dún Laoghaire would still be called Kingstown, O'Connell Street would still be Sackville Street, Cobh would still be Queenstown, Co. Laois would still be Queen's County and Co. Offaly still be known as King's County.

Blobby George

He also used his penis at his own parties. The swine.

alphabeat

http://www.johnoconor.com/photos.php