Irish Examiner View: In Ireland's public service, customers are the last to be told

Public-serving organisations should become more cusomter-focused when it comes to data and transparency.

Cork University Maternity Hospital. Picture: Denis Minihane.

Two contemporary examples underline the serious mismatch between organisations which exist to support the interests and rights of citizens and their warped sense of what constitutes service, transparency, and effective communications in the difficult times we face.

Families whose babies’ organs were sent abroad for incineration without their knowledge more than two years ago are still waiting to find out why it happened. Covid has become the catch-all excuse for a plethora of failures but there has been no proper national accounting and audit of the management and cost and consequences of the pandemic. But that is a subject for another time.