Yes Minister,ás Gaeilge ?

AlekSmart

Notwithstanding the Party affilliation of the Public Accounts Committee's Chairman,there appears to be a somewhat significant chasm now opening between Elected Representatives and The Established Civil Service...

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/tds-accuse-contemptuous-civil-servants-of-stonewalling-tactics-29150348.html

I remain of the opinion that it's not our Public Representation system per se which has imploded upon us,but rather the actual Implimentation Infrastructure known as the Civil Service,particularly the Senior Civil Servant grades.

The individual issues such as the Irish Glass Bottle scam and the Wolfe Tone St situations represent just the tip of what seems to be a floodplain of crooked maladministration and downright professional negligence at the highest levels.

Ministers come and Ministers go,but one is always aware of those vaugely familiar anonymous faces on the fringes of the Photo-Calls,faces which if one could be bothered to collate,appear over timelines often stretching to decades.

The stonewalling of a veritable platoon of HSE luminaries as described in the Indo article is but one example of the semi-contempt which this grade appear to hold the principle of accountability.

The ease with which the Secretary General of the Dept of Social Protection could admit that data from 1974 is still the day to day underpinning of the 2013 Free Travel Scheme is but one other example of the mad,mad,mad world of the Senior Civil Servant.

The continued acceptance of this total unquestionability is what leads to situations such as the latest round of N/M 11 flooding.

A relatively new and expensive piece of public infrastructure proves to be unfit for purpose,yet whilst huge signs were erected to advise us all of the design and planning team during it's construction...the responsible senior officials now appear to have no responsibility whatever ?

This State is in dire need of PAC like bodies to put some manners on a coterie of deeply entrenched "Officials" who pursue a very narrow focused track,largely independent of Political guidance or oversight.

Essentially,if Senior Departmental Officials are agin something,then we,the people,should inspect and consider it very closely before making our decision on it

Pete_Cavan

The government is not directly at fault but obviously they have the power to remove the loopholes these senior Civil Servants hide behind and can enact new legislation to bring them to task. There must be a desire among TDs to tackle this as the Sindo article quotes several government TDs who are unhappy with how CS can wriggle out of simply answering questions on issues, never mind actually facing disciplinary hearings, with even Sean Flemming storming out of a meeting and branding a senior HSE official as "a disgrace" (saying something when a FF TD can be so disgusted). This would also find favour with the electorate. You would think the current government would be desperate to expose dodgy dealings regarding, for example, the Irish Glass Bottle Site fiasco which happened under FFs watch. One can only assume these unelected, unaccountable and lergely unknown senior CS officials wheld so much power they can even prevent the government from taking action against them!