Another litany of HSE betrayal: Enough failure

IT might be an exaggeration to say that there is, in one dusty office or another, a report on the failures in our health services for each of the 72,022 fans who saw Waterford beat Cork in Croke Park on Sunday. 

However, those who preside over repeated failure could not be as confident if the same suggestion was made about the attendance at the Women’s Rugby World Cup game between Ireland and Japan. That crowd numbered in the thousands rather than tens of thousands.

Yet another report was published yesterday. It found major failings in standards for protecting children in foster care in the mid-west. These included allegations of delays in reporting suspected abuse to gardaí. The Health Information

and Quality Authority found major non-compliance with national standards in three out of eight — almost half — of the areas examined.

We’ve been here many times before but nothing seems to change. More drastic action is required — it’s time to sack those who fall short and challenge their pension expectations. Imagine the positive changes that would provoke.