Irish Examiner view: Independent appraisal for the best

The Productivity and Savings Taskforce has been asked to examine how the multibillion-euro health budget is being spent

State healthcare in all its varied forms makes up a vast, sprawling entity which maintains a presence in almost every nook and corner of Ireland, with a budget commensurate with the organisation’s size.

It is now over two decades since a cabinet minister — usually identified as Brian Cowen — hung the nickname of Angola on the Department of Health, a reference to that African nation’s plague of landmines.

Health has not lost its reputation as a portfolio with the capacity to produce unpleasant surprises for those running it, both politicians and civil servants, and little wonder.

State healthcare in all its varied forms makes up a vast, sprawling entity which maintains a presence in almost every nook and corner of Ireland, with a budget commensurate with the organisation’s size.

It should be encouraging, therefore, to see news of a new taskforce being charged with examining the health services, with a view to specific improvements in the areas of productivity and savings.

The Productivity and Savings Taskforce, which will be co-chaired by HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster and Department of Health secretary general Robert Watt, has been asked to examine how the multibillion-euro health budget is being spent and was due to meet on Wednesday.

However, the two individuals heading up the taskforce also exemplify the broader challenge faced by the health service: Inspiring public confidence.

Both men have featured in less than flattering headlines in recent months: Watt’s combative defence of his handling of the Tony Holohan secondment rankled with several politicians last year, while last November, a memo from Gloster to hospitals was interpreted as seeking to speed up the discharge of elderly patients.

Such performances bolster the view that the health service is dominated by bureaucrats and managers at the expense of clinicians, undercutting expectations of this new task force accordingly. 

If a group is to offer an honest and searching appraisal of the efficiency of our healthcare system, is it appropriate to have that group chaired by the chiefs of two of the main pillars of that system?

The counter-argument will be made that no one could be more familiar with the organisations being reviewed. 

It is surely best practice, however, to have independent appraisal of a system that most people would agree is in dire need of serious reform and improvement.

Taxing billionaires

The World Economic Forum, which meets in Davos this week, is generally seen as the preserve of the wealthy and privileged, which makes the news which emerged from the Swiss venue in recent days all the more surprising.

Over 250 millionaires and billionaires are to ask representatives at the forum to raise their taxes in order to fund better public services around the world; they wish to present a document, ‘Proud To Pay’, to the world leaders gathering at the summit this week. 

The document states: “Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society... This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”

Celebrity spotters will enjoy picking out some of the names affixed to the document. They include American heirs Abigail Disney and Valerie Rockefeller, whose surnames are redolent of wealth, as well as Mission: Impossible star Simon Pegg and, in a neat example of life imitating art, actor Brian Cox, who played a fictional billionaire, Logan Roy, in the TV series Succession.

This was a surprising move, not least because we associated many of the super-rich with the very opposite of the aims expressed in that document: The energetic and imaginative avoidance of tax liabilities.

Participants walk through congress centre of the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Picture: Markus Schreiber/AP Photo

A group of billionaires and millionaires not only willing to pay more taxes, but urging governments to tax them at a higher rate is more difficult to comprehend.

If the initiative leads to more tax receipts coming in which can be used for the greater good, so much the better. Will it encourage other wealthy people to volunteer to pay more tax, or is that point moot?

If the plea is successful we could see many jurisdictions adopting a similar approach to their wealthy citizens, though some may hesitate before raising taxes for fear of losing those wealthy citizens to less-stringent regimes.

Perhaps those will be the ultimate winners — the tax havens where few questions are asked about the origins of residents’ wealth, and fewer still about their tax liabilities.

Dog's dinner

Controversy has raised its ugly head in the matter of Bobi the Portuguese mastiff.

For readers unfamiliar with this story, when Bobi passed away last October he was recognised as the oldest dog in the world at the age of 31 years and five months.

Unfortunately this achievement has now come under close scrutiny. 

Amateur investigators have raised the alarm regarding photographs of Bobi dating from 1999, which suggest that either he changed colouring significantly between then and his death in 2023 or that two different dogs are involved.

Bobi, a purebred Rafeiro do Alentejo Portuguese dog, with his Guinness World Record certificates. Picture: Jorge Jeronimo/AP Photo

Inquiries have now involved entities as various as Portuguese government databases and Wired magazine, but the ultimate judge of such matters has now intervened decisively.

A spokesperson for the Guinness World Records organisation has said a “formal review” of the oldest dog record is under way, but added that Bobi had not been officially stripped of his title while the review is being carried out.

Until that review is complete, let us all restrain from unhelpful conjecture.