Mulvey’s plain speaking - Honesty is best

HOW very refreshing and cheering the direct intervention of Kieran Mulvey, the new chairman of Sport Ireland, was in the Billy Walsh/IABA fiasco.

There was no ambiguity, no wriggle room, no maybe-we-might, no sleight of hand, no gentle arm twisting, no irra-come-on. Just plain talking. Basically, the IABA were given little or no choice — change your position on Walsh’s contract or prepare for life on a reduced budget.

How much better our public life would be if this directness, this honesty, became the norm, or was even invoked more often, especially in Government efforts to introduce reforms right across the interface between citizens and the State.