Public servants don’t get to decide what’s in the public interest

WE have a new arbiter for what is in the public interest, it seems. In a letter to the Oireachtas Finance Committee, Robert Watt – the controversial secretary general of the Department of Health – refused to attend a hearing into the botched attempt to place Dr Tony Holohan on secondment from his Chief Medical Officer role to a professorship in Trinity College.

Having already appeared before the Health Committee, Mr Watt said it was not in the public interest for him to be questioned by both. ‘I have answered questions on these matters at the Health Committee and I do not believe it is reasonable for me to be asked to attend a different sectoral committee to answer questions on the same issue,’ he said in the letter. ‘I’m sure you would agree this is neither in the public interest, nor is it an efficient use of members’ or public servants’ time.’

Accountable

Well, call me old-fashioned, but that is not a determination he has any right to make. There is a fairly obvious clue in the word ‘public’ before servant. We, the public, elect politicians to ensure that what is done in our name is transparent. This applies especially to any initiative proposed, or decision taken, by the likes of Mr Watt, and it is far from unreasonable for us to expect him to be accountable to any committee that wishes to summon him.

There was a time when we simply did not know who our mandarins even were. Faceless men, for the most part, held the real power in Kildare Street and its satellite offices around the city, members of the so-called permanent government. Indeed, when I was younger, the only public servant’s name I could have rattled off with any degree of confidence was the economist TK Whitaker, and that is only because his signature appeared on pound notes when he was governor of the Central Bank.

Certainly, I cannot remember a time when the surname of a public servant alone could appear in a newspaper headline and immediately be recognised and understood. Now, the mention of ‘Watt’ or ‘Holohan’ in that context is widespread.

This is representative of a wider shift in the roles of, and relations between, politicians and their secretariats. As our sister newspaper, The Irish Mail On Sunday, reported at the weekend, a quite astonishing 116 civil servants earn more than the Cabinet ministers to whom they report, while 36 of that number are actually on higher salaries than Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar.

Human nature being what it is, you would have to suspect that at least some of them see this as making them even more important than the two most powerful elected politicians in the land. Governments come and go, and cabinet reshuffles are a feature of most administrations at some point in their tenure, so it surely can be assumed that at least some of these mandarins treat their ministers with anything between indifference and hostility.

Mr Watt, for instance, did not deem it necessary to inform Health Minister Stephen Donnelly of the secondment of Dr Holohan, the most famous and powerful public servant in Irish history, one who literally had the power to shut down the entire country.

Mr Watt correctly pointed out that he was not obliged to do so, but good judgement would have been a welcome visitor to the proceedings. When you are agreeing a package that includes an annual research grant of €2million to Trinity College and what, optically, is a sweetheart deal for the CMO, you would expect that an astute man would anticipate political fallout and tip his minister off. Instead, Mr Donnelly was left gasping for air like a recently landed trout, as indeed was Mr Martin.

The bigger problem with public service, though, is its endless, reflexive instinct to protect itself. Most recently, we saw it in two high-profile instances: the wrangling over compensation to be paid to Joanne Hayes and her family for the disgraceful ordeal they faced over the Kerry Babies case and the subsequent inquiry into that regrettable affair, and the plan to seal testimony of child abuse survivors for 75 years. Neither of these was in the public interest, but instead seemed as if they were designed to protect the State.

Scrutiny

And, of course, we know that the Civil Service Accountability Board set up by former Labour leader Brendan Howlin has not met since 2016. Those of us who work in the private sector face daily scrutiny in many cases, or at the very least an annual performance review. When the civil service engages in these processes, it effectively reviews itself.

That’s why Oireachtas committees are so important: because they act as an independent assessor of performance, with members of all parties free to question public servants on the implementation of Government policy, and even about the odd solo run.

Watt announced last night that he would appear before the health committee. It follows an announcement from the Finance Committee that it would seek a specific agreement of both Dáil and Seanad to compel Watt to appear.

This latest twist in the Watt saga could have been avoided if the health mandarin understood a very simply aspect of public service: He is there to serve us, the public – and we get to decide what is in our interest, not him.