If we can’t get truth, accountability, it’s time to abolish unwieldy HSE

Remove the element of accountability, and the bureaucracy always wins. And when unaccountable bureaucracy wins, citizens lose, writes Fergus Finlay

When the director- general of the HSE is called before the Public Accounts committee, again and again, to clarify what he told the committee the last time, you know there’s a serious problem.

Several times now, Tony O’Brien has been accused of misleading the committee and the public, of withholding information he should have released, and of trying to prevent the truth from coming out. The RTÉ This Week programme, and especially Daniel McConnell in this newspaper, have been repeatedly frustrated in trying to get to the question of accountability in the story behind the case of Grace.