SENIOR UNION official David Begg has said his call to nationalise the banks was the position of the trade union movement and had nothing to do with his membership of the board of directors at the Central Bank.

More from The Irish Times.

David Begg has always concerned me, he sits on Aer Lingus when it makes job losses, and he sits on the board of the Central Bank whilst making calls for the banking system to be nationalised (but not in a board-member capacity, in his ICTU capacity).

Can this continue, or should he make a stand and stand-down?

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its certainly hypocritical.

what i'd like to know is WHY is he on it? what exceptional skill does he bring to the central bank? seems to me begg, like ALOT of lads out there, just got handed to postion for no real reason whatsoever beside the fact he's one of the select few on the carosel that cross polinate ALL state boards.

im reminded of something one of the ex lord mayors said on radio about how strangely all these people eat drink and socialise with each other and to be brutally honest smacks of cronyism. (EDIT. dermott lacey, knew it would come back. if memory serves he was representing the students union or something like that and he recalled the first item of business on the board he was but on was to sign off on the renumeration of the chairman and the rest of em.)

personally i think he should go as comments like this dont help the financial sector in its worst period in modern history, let alone the banks.

Deirdre Purcell is also on the Board of the Central Bank.
What purpose do these board members serve?
What role did the central bank have over and above that of the Financial regulator?
What did they have to say about the credit fueled boom?
I recollect that the central bank kept on assuring us that everything was more or less fine.
David Begg gets more than a fair hearing on RTE during his regular appearances.
Its like having a weekly sermon from a priest or clergyman.
I have never heard a difficult question put to him?

I think the entire non executive director system in Ireland is a joke.

The idea that ICTU should have a rep on the board of the Central Bank and on boards like Aer Lingus makes no sense whatsoever. Its an old boys (and girls) network. These companies should be operating to a level of transparency that allows us all to feel confident in what they are doing. Putting Begg (and others) in there creates an automatic conflict of interest.

I also think that ODCE needs to ban every current NED in the banks for (say) 12 months for a serious dereliction of their duties. Each of the banks to a greater or lessor extent became significantly over extended and over exposed to property and property related. It is the job of the directors to ensure that doesn't happen. NEDs in Ireland have had a very different approach for the last number of decades whereby they see their role as simply to turn up, go through the motions, sign off on whatever the Exec Mgmt team wants and have some lunch.

Whinging and complaining about this achieves nothing - you need a real incentive and I would go so far as to guarantee you that if ODCE announced bans on NEDs you would find resignations from these sinecures all over town and we would then be forced to construct proper boards operating proper governance policies rather than monthly lunch bunch meetings.

Time he went out to grass really

It is mainly an all-boys network.

Why exactly - the man is great at naysaying, objecting and so on, but when has he actually ever come out with a sensible, workable solution to anything?

People like him make me very indisposed to the trade union movement, a movement I support in theory, but the actualities are that most unions are filled with air brained fools, more interested in left wing rhetoric, or at front line representation, getting paid leave to go to 'workshops' and generally avoid real work.

A trade union leader on the board of the central bank seems to me to be, at best bizarre?

He is the real champagne socialist.

Partnership provided a veneer of respectability to policy decision, but mainly it was driven by fait accompli backroom deals. l saw the roadshow in action with planning. Begg was crap, he ought go.