Sir, – The Taoiseach believes that civil and public servants are entitled to have meetings and to brainstorm without being secretly recorded (News, February 16th). I agree.
But I believe that taxpayers who provide about €20 billion a year to the HSE are entitled to know that its parent department is of the opinion that some in the HSE’s senior management are not up to the job. Why do we have to rely on whistleblowers to confirm that what many of us have long suspected is indeed true?
And the back-and-forth tennis match between the Department of Health, the HSE and the Public Accounts Committee, as reported by Jack Horgan-Jones (News, February 16th), points to another truth – the tendency of senior public servants, including politicians, to circle the wagons when confronted with the inconvenient truth.
For as long as that culture persists, those of us who pay to keep the show on the road must rely on whistleblowers and the media to cast a questioning eye over what we get in return for our tax euro. – Yours, etc,
PAT O’BRIEN,
Dublin 6.