Sir, - Maire Geoghegan-Quinn's prescription for the ills of the BTSB (August 9th) was pathetic. She proposes that it is an appropriate response to what was both the biggest avoidable human health disaster and one of the worst public sector scandals in the history of the State to suggest that the selection process for BTSB board members be amended. This indicates a fundamental lack of perception of the significance of what happened in the Hepatitis C affair and of the extent of radical reform required to ensure it doesn't happen again.
We would all agree with Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn that one of the fundamental factors which turned sloppiness into tragedy was the lack of objective supervision of the goings-on at the BTSB. But the cause is much more fundamental than the ex-Minister seems to realise. The fact that there was no whistle-blower is an inevitable consequence of our structural arrangements for public sector bodies. We seem unable to accept that people must be independently scrutinised for incompetence, corruption, party interest, self-interest or whatever. This leads us to a situation where everyone sees themselves as being on the same side. It is not permissible to recognise explicitly that conflict and lines of demarcation are not only natural, but healthy and desirable. Our obsession with consensus leads to the fatal state of affairs where all involved are compromised. In such soil, cover-ups can only flourish.
In my view, this can only be resolved by removing operating agencies such as the BTSB from the public sector. It is the role of the public sector to regulate, legislate, supervise, monitor and, where necessary, penalise. To ensure effective, independent supervision in the interests of the people, this means that the operating agency must be removed from public control, ownership and responsibility. The story peddled by Michael Noonan, whereby the BTSB is legally independent of the Department of Health, is a laughable charade. The Department owns it and the Department is responsible for it. If there is any doubt about this, we need only to ask: "Who pays the compensation?" - Yours, etc., Dr Norman Stewart,
Malahide,
Co Dublin.