C&AG shows why reform is too slow

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s report is a set piece of our public life. Each year it uncovers waste and inefficiency.

Each year it provokes fractious hand-wringing and usually a trenchant statement from some figure in opposition — Fianna Fáil’s John McGuinness obliged this year — demanding action to stop the rot. Unfortunately, this indignation fades fairly quickly because we all know next year’s report will uncover another litany of mismanagement and underachievement.

We move on to the next issue and nothing much changes. Public servants feel put upon one more time, as this report is inevitably negative and success is, if at all, celebrated elsewhere. Some in the private sector, especially those who cannot understand how such waste is tolerated, get hot under the collar over the misuse of taxpayers’ cash and the seeming impossibility of changing it.