Ministers must be in charge of their department and staff
WHEN Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the joint sitting of the Oireachtas on Wednesday, he showed what leadership is all about.
In the face of the epic challenge forced on Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, an apocalyptic assault on the citizenry and sovereignty of his country, President Zelensky has defied the might of the Russian army, and continues to engage in a tactical tour de force in rallying support for his stricken nation.
That his video call petitioning for support came this week is perhaps an annoying irony for our own leaders.
One by one various ministers had to admit that what should have been a basic and popular appointment – Tony Holohan’s to
a Professorship of Public Health – had been made with key information omitted, and had turned into yet another scandal.
News that Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan’s ‘secondment’ to Trinity College would be paid for by the Department of Health, on an ongoing basis and without consultation or agreement with a single elected official, especially the Health or Public Expenditure Ministers, is astonishing.
We have seen in numerous scandals now with this Government that it utterly fails to anticipate basic optics that make it appear to be constantly on the side of the feathered nest, rather than the hard-pressed taxpayer.
We saw this with the Zappone affair, and in Champagne-gate at the Department of Foreign Affairs, both of which offered a look behind the curtain of our civil service and how appointments to roles are made in modern Ireland.
We saw it too in the €81,000 pay rise claimed by secretary general Robert Watt at the Department of Health, which itself caused immense controversy.
Despite all this, revelations were drip-fed once more this week, getting more infuriating day by day. This culminated in Dr Holohan’s decision yesterday to announce his retirement as CMO – and departure to the private sector.
Prior to this development, significant questions existed for secretary general Mr Watt. Subsequent to it, it is hard to adequately sum up the conversation that needs to be had with the department’s top man.
This paper has previously reported on Mr Watt’s contretemps with Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien over the lack of accountability for his massive salary, which continues to rankle with many members of the public.
For him to have been the man who signed off on Dr Holohan’s unusual secondment rubs further salt into the wound.
It is doubly disappointing that his role in the arrangement was confirmed only in private to an Oireachtas committee, following days of inquiry from the press.
Time and time again, government departments appear to act in the interest of their own selfpreservation rather than in the interest of the citizens they are constituted to serve.
The ministers in charge of these departments, rather than admitting their ignorance of the details, would be better served taking control of their staff.
They must make sure that basic governance includes any such items that might cause public outrage, which at the very least should bear their explicit stamp of approval.
We have also reported before on the dormant Civil Service Accountability Board, which has not met for six years. Without gatekeepers, entirely avoidable controversies such as the one that erupted this week will continue to happen, and undermine the very leadership President Zelensky reminds us we deserve.