The Mary Reid Story (feature)
01 March 1993
According to sources within the European Commission, the British Security Service, MI5, is actively involved in blocking staff from taking up posts after they have been appointed. Concern is particularly centred on Ray MacSharry's office DG VI which covers agriculture (MacSharry retired from the Commission in December 1992). Within the last three years, two Irish people have been recruited only to be told subsequently that they could not take up the post and a third failed to have her contract renewed.
MacSharry's former press secretary, John Cooney, was told in June 1990 that he would be given a three-year contract as Spokesman for Agriculture. Instead he was given two short-term contracts of five and seven months. Cooney's case is set out in the Official Journal of the European Communities. He has lodged a claim of around £300,000 for substantial material and moral damages with the Court of First Instance. The second case concerns an Irish woman who was highly placed in MacSharry's Cabinet. MacSharry's departure has been used as the occasion for not renewing her contract.
The third case involves the deputy director of the Commission's LEADER programme. The details of this case suggest that French and British intelligence agencies may have co-operated in vetting the appointment. The LEADER programme exists to support rural development initiatives and to create a network of groups throughout the EC. In total, the programme is costing about £1 billion with an EC direct contribution of around £300 million,
just under £3 million of which is being spent in the North of Ireland. The political significance of the programme in the Irish context is that it concerns underdeveloped rural areas with strong nationalist traditions in the border areas of Northern Ireland and the Western Irish counties from Donegal to Kerry. Writing in the first issue of Info LEADER in March 1992, Commissioner Ray McSharry states: "The transnational network which is the process of being established is one of the essential features of LEADER. The major role in this respect is being played by the coordinating unit which is run by AEIDL, the firm which has been awarded the contract after competitive tender. I wish them every success in this task, and in particular to the recently-appointed head of the project, Yves Champetier, and to Mary Reid, the deputy head, who is expected to join him soon."
Mary Reid, however, never did take up her three-year post. Shortly before Reid was due to take up office, she received a telephone call from Philip Lowe, the Director for Rural Development at DG VI. Lowe said that there were budgetary problems within AEIDL (Association Europenne pour L'Information sur le Development Local) and some administrative delays, but that he expected to see Reid on the 1st September (1992), the agreed starting date. Lowe would not specify what the problems were. When September arrived, Reid still had no word of what was happening but gathered that the problem would be resolved once a key Commission decision-maker came back from a business trip. In mid-September, Lowe told Reid that she would not be employed.
Writing to Reid on 1st October 1992, Lowe repeated the "administrative and budgetary problems" reasoning and went on to say "I do not believe there should be any grounds for thinking that your reputation in the rural development field may suffer as a result. Your work is widely respected not just at local level and I am sure that your qualities will not fail to come to the notice of those involved in new rural initiatives in Ireland and elsewhere."
This was an extraordinary about-turn for the Commission. Reid had first been approached about the assistant directorship in December 1991 by AEIDL. As Lowe had only recently taken on responsibility for LEADER, he insisted on taking personal charge of recruitment to the LEADER central unit. In February, Lowe invited Reid to Brussels and made it clear to both AEIDL and to Reid that<