Risk of losing jobs will help focus minds - Another catalogue of waste

EACH year, the publication of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report is an occasion for despair, frustration, anger, and growing bewilderment. 

Despair in that the incredible waste and excess uncovered could do so much to help those struggling each and every day to cling to the very fringes of this society; frustration that the waste and excess seem unchallengeable, permanent failings in our public life; anger that those responsible for this sinful waste are utterly insulated from anything that might be recognised as accountability or sanction; and bewilderment that we, like the proverbial rabbits permanently frozen in the headlights, put up with such immoral squandering as if it was entirely normal.

The business lobby, true to form, complains loudly about unacceptable inefficiencies and the obvious lack of professionalism. They, rightly, point out that huge, hard-won resources are wasted. They argue that taxes should not be increased until these issues — such as the fact that health insurance companies owed the HSE €290m for private patient income at the end of 2014 partially because the HSE can’t organise a proper billing service — are resolved.