Government isn’t able to promote progress

I was amongst the thousands who emigrated in the late 1940s and early 1950s, destination England where I spent the next 46 years working for one company for 38 years during which time they had me working in 14 different countries over 22 of them.

This gave me a good insight into how other countries managed their affairs.

As I was retired when I returned to Ireland it took me a while to compare how Ireland managed its affairs with the others. It was baffling to see a huge and costly but toothless tribunal examining suspect deeds of delinquent politicians.

Then there was the child abuse scandal with ministers of government colluding with cardinals.

Then we had the reliability and genuineness of the construction industry being called into question.

Now we have Ruairi Quinn, our Education Minister deciding to abolish the Junior Cert exam and allow the teachers the privilege of assessing their own pupils. And now I have discovered that Irish bankers also enjoy the privilege of immunity from blame if they wrongly advise customers seeking loans or mortgages.

I have come to the conclusion that our Government’s idea of progress is to stand still and wait for someone to give us a push.

We certainly do not have the people to manage our affairs to a conclusion and we do not have an education system to produce them.

Richard Prendergast

Rathcormac

Co Cork