Irish Examiner view: Wanton waste

€10m posting pay slips

The Department of Education spent €10.2 million on posting payslips to school staff.

RTÉ’s recent expose of unforgivable waste and mismanagement of public funds by the Office of Public Works bolstered the opinion that swathes of official Ireland march to a very different drum than the rest of us. It, thankfully or unfortunately depending on which side of the fence you stand, added momentum to the idea that accountability in public life or service must be given a new, proactive meaning.

That argument was strengthened further when the Public Accounts Committee heard an admission from the Department of Education that it must develop a new payroll system “as a matter of urgency” after it emerged it spent €10.2m posting fortnightly payslips to roughly 130,000 school staff over the last six years.

 This is so wasteful, and wrong on many levels especially environmental, that it is hard to understand how the Government department charged with educating tomorrow’s citizens is so very off the pace of modern life.

No-one in that department needs to fret, there will be no consequences — but there should be for such wanton waste.